Falling into Something Better
by Curly McJimbo
Summary: At 11.31pm on a Friday night, the last thing Blaine Anderson expected to see on his doorstep was Noah Puckerman. Plaine.
1. Realising that person is not your world

**Important Information** - Starts between_ Heart_ and _On My Way_, completely AU from there. I've used the events from _Dance with Somebody_ as a springboard though, so Kurt is flirting with Chandler already. Essentially, this is a Plaine reimagining of the second half of season 3. It's going to be ~15 chapters long, and I should hopefully be putting a new chapter up every 2 to 3 days.  
**Disclaimer** - I own no characters, recognisable plot features or songs.  
**Word Count** - 2357  
**Chapter** - 1/15  
**Warnings** - eventual sexual content, language, mentions of: suicide/bullying/abuse. Please don't proceed if any of these issues disturb or upset you.  
**Eventual Pairings** - Plaine, mentions of: Kurtofsky, Brittana, Tike, Finchel, Pucktana friendship and Bike friendship.

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_**There are steps, between breaking up with one love and falling for another, which every man must complete.**_

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_**Phase 1. The Break Up.**_

_**Step 1. Realising that person is not your world. **_

* * *

At 11.31pm on a Friday night, the last person Blaine Anderson expected to see on his doorstep was Noah Puckerman. Yet there he was, holding a six-pack and smirking. Blaine blinked, so not prepared for company. He'd already removed his gel, for heaven's sake, he was not for public viewing. Blaine knew his eyes were red-rimmed, skin blotchy, and he had never wanted to slide under a rock and hide more.

It didn't help that Puck looked as he did every day; like the Sex God he professed to being. Blaine tried not to huff, but good God he did not need this right now.

"Evening." Puck greeted, darting around Blaine into the hall, oblivious to the ex-Warbler's state. "Sweet pad, Anderson." Blaine winced uncomfortably as the jock admired the entrance hall, before spinning to grin at Blaine. "I brought beers."

"Puck, what are you even doing here?" Blaine asked, thanking every deity he could think of that his parents were away at a conference. They had met Puck once, when he'd agreed to give Blaine a lift to a New Directions event, and he was immediately declared non-desirable. The nipple ring, visible through his thin wife-beater, hadn't helped.

"Rachel phoned me about the big gay glee break-up. Said she and Mercedes were heading round to Kurt's to cheer him up, and I thought, _hey, who's cheering Anderson up?_" Puck asked. Blaine sighed. Of course everyone knew about he and Kurt, secrets were a mythical creature at McKinley. "So, here I am, with a shit-ton of alcohol and a copy of Die Hard, willing to fake interest while you cry about Lady-Lips."

"…Thanks? Puck, I really just want to mope right now. It's been a long day, and I don't have the energy to be nice or polite or social. You don't have to be here." Blaine stated. Puck made his way into the kitchen, whistling at its modern décor, before turning to face Blaine.

"Listen up, Tiny Tim, I _do_ have to be here." Puck stated, glaring a little at the shorter boy. "I know I'm not all that, but I'm all you've got right now. Do you know how many members of glee are going to side with Kurt? In the big gay divorce, you've won me, maybe Mike, and that's about it. There are a lot of fence-sitters, but Kurt's definitely taken Mercedes, Rachel, and Finn. And, okay, there'll be a fresh bunch of chipper glee recruits in September, but you've got to survive until then with the brat pack glaring at you."

"We've said we're not going to make people pick sides…"

"Well then, Curly, you clearly have no idea how break-ups work." Puck rolled his eyes. "They're messy, and people get hurt, and _everyone _chooses a side. Okay, maybe in 5 or 6 or 7 months time, you _might_ be okay with letting Kurt&Co back into your life, but by then you'll probably be dating some hot piece of ass who wont want your first boyfriend floating round."

"That's so not true." Blaine argued back. He leant against the counter, frowning at Puck. "You and Finn have stayed friends with Rachel and Santana and Quinn and –"

"- and you and Kurt weren't Finchel or Puckleberry or any of the other stupid bed-hopping couples that float around McKinley. You two were together for a fuck of a long time, so you don't get to 'stay friends'. You get to sit on the opposite sides of the choir room with your respective sets of supporters and glare. Without me, dude? Your side would be hella empty." Puck argued, and Blaine fell silent. "You've won me now, Anderson. I come with a no-return policy that's very hard to get out of."

"I've won you?" Blaine hopped onto the kitchen island, legs dangling as he glanced at Puck. His lips quirked up, in spite of the heartache. "Puck –"

"Don't go getting all mushy on me." Puck raised an eyebrow, dumping the beers on the counter. "You're a bro now, Anderson, don't think you can get out of it." Blaine watched silently as Puck began opening drawers, looking for the bottle opener. "And, as your bro, it is my job to cheer you the fuck up."

It would have almost been sweet had it not been for the obscenities. Blaine walked around the breakfast island, dipping into the one draw Puck hadn't tried and grabbing the bottle opener. Steeling himself mentally, Blaine attempted to grin at Puck, handing over the bottle opener. "What's the harm in one beer?"

"That's what I like to hear!"

* * *

Blaine wasn't quite sure what had happened between 'one beer' and 'several shots of unidentifiable alcohol', but he was sure it wasn't good. He wasn't even sure where the unidentifiable alcohol had come from, but it went down smoothly, and that was all that mattered. Somehow, the topic of conversation had got onto Kurt, and though he wasn't yet a weeping hysterical mess (score one to Blaine), Puck had somehow managed to make him start venting. He avoided the big arguments, but Blaine revealed the silly things that had slowly dug into his psyche, annoying him beyond belief.

"And, you know what else? Bronzer in the lotion. I hated the bronzer in the lotion thing, you know?" Blaine growled from his sofa, cradling another beer between his slightly shaking hands. "And his stupid perfect hair. You know he didn't use product, and it still looked like that? It takes me half an hour, _half an hour_, to get my hair half decent, and there he was, just looking like _that_." Puck was strewn across the other sofa, nodding at the right times but not saying all that much. His jacket had been discarded carelessly across the back of the couch, and every time he stretched Blaine could see a little bit of lower ab. Not that he was looking, like, at all. "I'm being a bad person, aren't I? I shouldn't be bitching about him –"

"If you think Porcelain isn't doing the exact same thing across town, you didn't know him at all." Puck replied whilst slinging back his beer.

"Maybe that was the problem." Blaine replied morosely, emotions veering due to the liquor in his stomach and the ache in his chest. "I wasn't attentive enough. I didn't listen to his needs, and now he's left me for brighter pastures." Puck quirked an eyebrow, swigging his beer again. "What?"

"You've spent the last 20 minutes whining about him. Sounds like you're better off without him, dude." Puck was more attentive than people gave him credit for, and beneath the tiny complaints, he could see the bigger picture. "From the sounds of it, the sex was shit."

Even drunk, Blaine had the dignity to flush tomato-red. "No it wasn't!"

"Oh, it totally was." Puck smirked, sitting up a little straighter. "What was wrong? You both wanna top? Or the other way round?"

"Shut. Up." Blaine moaned into his hands, wincing as Puck laughed. "That wasn't the problem, anyway. We, ahem, switched."

It was Blaine's turn to laugh as Puck scrunched up his face, taking a moment to erase all thoughts of Kurt as a sexual being from his mind. "So what caused the Big Gay Divorce, Dr Phil? I know you two didn't break up because of some bronzer and hair product."

"Honestly? It's not been right for a while." Blaine stated, staring into his glass. "Flirting was fun, and the first kiss was beautiful, but we peaked there; we were just coasting, not progressing. I don't think Kurt's heart was in it, it was just mine, and I love him, I do, but one person isn't enough, you know? Everything after the kiss was nice, but there wasn't enough emotion behind it from him, not really. And let's face it," Blaine laughed a little bitterly, wiping his brow. "How many people are lucky enough to find their soul mate in their first partner? The sex was…okay. I just don't think sex can be all that good without real, romantic love from both partners backing it up." Blaine stated. Puck stared back blankly with raised eyebrows.

"You have _definitely_ been fucking the wrong people, Anderson." Puck smirked. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

"If you think I'm that easy just because I'm single, you've got another thing coming." Blaine muttered back as Puck helped him off the sofa.

"That's what they all say." Puck teased, throwing Blaine's arm across his shoulders. "Now, which one's your room?"

"First door at the top of the stairs." Blaine replied, letting Puck lead him through the house. "You're staying."

"Am I now?"

"If you get in a car now you'll end up in a ditch somewhere or in a police station with a DUI to your name." Blaine collapsed onto the bed, lying face down, limbs splayed. "The guest beds aren't made." Blaine stated as he mashed his face into the pillow. "Just sleep here, the bed's big enough for two."

"I've known stronger, straighter men than you feel powerless to the pull of the Puckster, Anderson." Puck teased, taking off his shoes and belt and climbing in anyway. "No funny business, I know how you _gays_ are."

"No funny business, I know how you _sex sharks_ are." Blaine snapped back. He glanced at Puck through hooded eyes, watching the self-affirmed sex God climb into his bed. _Heavens, if Kurt could see me now…_

"So, you gonna tell me who broke up with who?" Puck interrupted Blaine's train of thought, rolling over to face the ex-warbler. "Rach was pretty vague on the phone, and you've not specified all night…"

"I don't know." Blaine answered honestly, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. "I think he broke up with me, but I didn't really fight for the relationship like he wanted." Blaine glanced at Puck again, who seemed more interested than he had all night, and he sighed. It felt almost nice to get this off his chest. Puck was right; Kurt had more pull in the New Directions; aside from Mike, all of Blaine's friends were better friends with Kurt. He had no Warblers left, no close friends outside McKinley. There was no one to hear his side of things, except his newfound comrade, so he let the words jumble out. "It's been coming for a month, but things started coming to a head around Valentines. He had been flirting with someone else over text, someone I don't even think he's all that interested in. He wanted to look for a spark, something to get passionate about, and it makes sense, because that's how I felt about Sebastian." The words spill out, and Blaine winces. "I wasn't _cheating _with Sebastian, I wasn't responding to his advances, the way Kurt responded to this guy's. I didn't push him away, though."

"And what a fantastic decision _that _turned out to be."

"I know, I know. He was a horrible person, I get it, but he was different. Interesting. Not Kurt." Blaine sighed, rolling back onto his stomach and glancing at Puck nervously. This was a very stereotypically girly conversation about feelings and emotions, and, well, none of those things were exactly Puck's strong points.

"Yeah, I get it. Quinn was interesting. Santana was interesting. Unfortunately, Quinn turned out to be batshit insane, and Santana turned out to be a lesbian." Puck shrugged. "You want a speech about how there are plenty more fish in the sea or shit like that? Because there are, you know. Tons and tons of gay shiny fish, all waiting for you to go find them, and okay, they're mostly not in Lima, but if you want dick, it's out there, man."

"I don't need a speech." Blaine stated, shaking his head. "It's just… I uprooted my whole life for Kurt, you know? I left Dalton for him, I came to a school where I risk being bullied for him, and I wore more gel because he preferred it. All my friends at McKinley are his friends really." Blaine sighed. "What am I meant to do, when everything we built, everything I am now, has been torn down and stripped away?"

"You take what's left, and build something new." Puck replied, and Blaine stared, frowning at the boy sceptically. "Dude, like I said, you've got me. Most of the guys on the football team have accepted you as a bro, and they're not gonna ditch you. Okay, Finn might, but Kurt's his stepbrother, he has to take his side. Santana and Brittany are my girls; they'll side with you, and fuck the rest of them. The sun does not set just because Kurt broke up with you." Puck finished, and Blaine smiled, ever so slightly. "I repeat. You're my bro now, Anderson, we're going to take life's lemons and make you one fruity-ass cocktail. Now go to sleep, it's well past bedtime for you Shire folk."

"Night, Puck." Blaine stated, sneaking a quick glance at Puck before he continued. "Thanks, for everything..."

"Don't mention it. Night, shmuckums." Puck smirked, rolling over to face the wall.

"Oh, fuck you." Blaine muttered, rolling over himself and trying to get some sleep.

* * *

In fairness to Puck, he hadn't made the morning anywhere near as awkward as he could have. Aside from some very on-the-wire jokes about Blaine's sexuality, he'd been almost friendly.

School a few days later had been awkward, especially when confronted with Kurt's angry, tear stained face at Glee rehearsals (so much for the easy break-up they'd promised one another), but having Puck on his side really did help. As Puck had predicted, a lot of the Glee club were Team Kurt, but, as much as it hurt that some of his closest friends in Glee were now glaring at him, Blaine wasn't as alone as he thought, and he had Puck to thank for it.

Having someone to give him the occasional lift home who, instead of standing around waiting impatiently for Blaine to finish sparring, taped up his own knuckles and threw a few punches, was nice too. Yes, overall, having Puck as a friend wasn't half as bad as he'd initially feared.

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**So, there you have the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, reviews are welcome and encouraged. **


	2. Standing up for yourself

_**Step Two - Standing up for yourself.**_

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The tutting was incessant. Every time Blaine had entered the choir room since Monday, someone had taken it upon themselves to tut at him, scowl at him or roll their eyes, and Blaine was sick to death of it. Finally, on Thursday, almost a week to the day since the Big Gay Divorce (Puck really needed to stop calling it that, it was so catchy) Blaine decided that enough was enough, and stormed towards Kurt, hands clenched in fists by his side. Kurt glanced at him, then down at his nails, brushing him off so easily that Blaine's anger started to build.

Blaine had heard the rumours, seen Kurt smiling at his phone. Kurt was still flirting with that Chandler guy, even after the split, and he didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. He'd shrugged off the break-up so quickly, and Blaine was there, hurting so much.

"What have you been saying happened between us?" Blaine asked, back rod-straight from agitation. Kurt's head popped up, shock on his features at the harsh tone of Blaine's voice. "Because as far as I can see, I've done nothing that warrants _anger and hatred_ from the people that were once my friends."

Kurt was flustered, huffing instead of answering the question. "You know what, I don't even want to know." Blaine interrupted, stalking away from the chairs towards the band. He checked they knew the song, and then went over to Mr Schue, who looked so out of his depth that it was almost funny. "I'd like to dedicate this song to anyone who's ever been cheated on."

"_Saturday night you and your boys went out to eat…"_ Blaine began, singing out all of his anger and pain. Kurt looked affronted, most of the glee club looked shocked, and Santana looked like all of her Christmases had come at once. Blaine kept singing, voice strong even as his mind fell apart, only to be buoyed slightly by the sheer quantity of voices backing him up. Some faces looked apprehensive in their participation – Rachel didn't seem to know whether to sing along or storm out – but others, like Mike, seemed to be getting into it, and the footballer was glaring at Kurt, disappointment written across his face.

Blaine stalked out before the guitarist had time to play the final note, storming through the corridors of McKinley angrily. Getting the bus that morning had been a mistake, he needed to get out of there before he started crying or breaking things. He slipped his bowtie from his pocket, throwing it around his neck once more – no one in the history of fashion has ever looked badass in a bowtie – and pushed his way around the school, crowds be damned.

Blaine hurried to the school entrance, figuring he could at least walk to the burger joint a few blocks down and hide in the toilets while he waited for the next bus, when he heard a car beeping incessantly. He tried to ignore it, but when the driver yelled _Hey, Anderson_ he had to yield.

Blaine relaxed as he spotted Puck behind the wheel, reflective sunglasses covering his eyes as he grinned in an almost feral manner. He rolled the battered jeep to a standstill in front of Blaine, reaching over and pushing the passenger door open. "Heard you needed a quick getaway."

"You heard right." Blaine smiled weakly, sliding into the car. "Santana?"

"Mike." Puck corrected, throwing the car into gear and hitting the road. "You would choose the one day I'm not in glee to pull a number like that. I would have paid to see Kurt's face." Puck smirked, glancing across at Blaine and noticing his friend didn't look all that fulfilled after his outburst. Puck reached across, clapping a firm hand on Blaine's shoulder and giving him a strong shake. "Mike's bringing Santana, Brittany and Tina 'round to mine. San, Mike and I'll play videogames and you can get weepy with Britt and Tina. Everyone wins." Puck's hand stayed on Blaine's shoulder as he drove. He slowed to a stop for a red light, and glanced across at Blaine, who was making baleful, puppy-dog eyes at him. "You okay?"

"No." Blaine mumbled, running a hand down his face. "I'm tired, and hurt, and disillusioned, and I hate the fact Kurt seems to be dealing so well. We were together for almost a year, yet he had one day of moping and then he was fine. It's not fair." Blaine tried so hard, but he couldn't stop a small wobble appearing in his voice, and he rubbed his betraying eyes viciously.

Puck refrained from saying the clichéd _Life isn't fair_, instead reaching down to unbuckle Blaine's seatbelt. The ex-Warbler watched him with confusion as he pushed the seatbelt off Blaine, before pulling Blaine into the truck's middle seat. Once there, Puck draped his arm across Blaine's shoulders, pulling him in for a half hug. It was only quick, as the lights turned green a moment later, but when Puck pulled away, he left his arm resting heavily across Blaine, eyes on the road as he offered his own special brand of wordless physical comfort.

"_It's not right, but it's okay, I'm gonna make it anyway,_" Puck eventually started to sing, tapping a beat upon the steering wheel. He looked down at Blaine, smirking. He raised the volume slightly, passers by on the street stopping to stare at the loud teen. "_Close the doors behind you leave your key, I'd rather be alone than unhappy!_" He sang at the top of his voice, laughing as Blaine punched him lightly in the side.

Puck's car pulled to a halt mere minutes later outside a battered bungalow. "Home sweet home." Puck stated, finally removing his arm from Blaine's shoulders. Blaine stared at the house apprehensively; the outside of the building looked unwelcoming and hostile, a mass of chipped grey paint and dirty windows. "Don't just sit there gawping, Anderson." Blaine blinked, looking at Puck, who stood staring, brow raised.

"Sorry." Blaine replied, sliding out of the car. They entered the house, and Blaine was struck by how devoid of personality the living room and kitchen were, and not in the shiny, catalogue manner of his own home. It was reminiscent of a cheap motel – everything was functional, but only just. It was only when they traipsed through to Puck's room that the house began to look lived in – Puck's room was small, but vibrant, full of photos, posters and knick-knacks. Blaine walked over to the desk, admiring the collection of instruments on or around the surface, from the guitar propped against the edge and the accordion on the chair to the harmonica beside a framed photo of Beth. "I didn't know you played the accordion."

"Found it in a pawn shop." Puck shrugged, chucking his bag in the corner and dropping down to sit on the bed. "It's amazing what you can learn if you're bored enough."

"And harmonica?"

"I've not got that bored yet." Puck smirked, watching Blaine attempt to play the instrument. "I learnt _Piano Man_ on it, then gave up."

"You like Billy Joel?" Blaine asked, putting the harmonica down.

"Uh, yeah." Puck stated incredulously. "I played _Only The Good Die Young_ for the glee club once, back when I was working the whole 'only Jewish artists' thing, way before you turned up to overpopulate the room with bowties." Puck motioned for his guitar, and Blaine handed it across, sitting on the bed as Puck started playing. _"Come on, Virginia, don't let me wait…"_

Blaine watched as Puck played, smiling when Santana's head suddenly appeared at the window. She glared at Blaine, pointing at the latch, and he traipsed over, letting her, Brittany, Mike and Tina in through the small window. Puck continued to play and sing, moving to stand as he reached the second verse. The four newcomers immediately broke into some sort of dance, clapping their hands above their heads and wiggling their hips. Blaine caught on pretty quickly, and they all sang along with Puck 'til he hit the final chord.

"Not to shabby, Puckerman." Santana smirked, scruffing Puck's Mohawk. "Now, put the guitar away and let's get down to business."

Mike's carful had stopped off at Brittany's to pick up her copy of Dance Dance Revolution, and it immediately became clear that Puck wasn't going to get to play Halo with Santana and Mike as planned, mainly due to the excitement on Mike's face. Puck had tried desperately to get Santana on his side, but Brittany wanted to play DDR, and the Latina would never pick anyone over Brittany.

Blaine very quickly realised why Puck was so apprehensive about the prospect of DDR. Puck was okay at it, but he was competitive, and in a room full of dancers and cheerleaders he was never going to win. They set up a little tournament, with Puck and Santana up first. The small room was slightly cramped after the inclusion of dance mats, but they made it work, and Blaine found himself sat at the top of the bed, watching Puck and Santana battle it out.

Brittany came over to where Blaine was sitting, collapsing in a limby heap beside him and throwing her torso over him into a hug. "Hey Blaine Warbler!"

"Hey Brittany. I'm not Blaine Warbler anymore, just plain old Blaine." Blaine smiled as Brittany leant away, sitting back on her haunches.

"Potato, tomato." Brittany smiled. "I'm sorry about you and Kurt, but hey, you've avoided a major disaster. Gemini and Scorpio? They're not compatible at all! What were you thinking!" Brittany asked, tapping him on the forehead lightly. "You'd have had like twin scorpion babies, it would have been horrible…"

"You believe in Astrology?" Blaine squinted, smiling as Brittany looked at him blankly. "Star signs?"

"You don't?" Brittany asked, looking at him incredulously. "Oh Blaine Warbler, I have so much to teach you about the world!" Brittany exclaimed. She threw herself forward once more, wrapping her arms around Blaine's head and laughing.

"Oh come on!" Puck exclaimed across the room. Somehow, he had ended up on the floor, Santana smirking down at him from the other mat.

"Suck it, Puckerman." She teased, turning to face Blaine and Brittany and mock frowning. "Hey, Anderson, you are not sneaking in on my woman that easily. Don't make me go all Lima Heights on your ass." Santana smirked, pulling her girlfriend to stand. "Britt, you're up, I'm done handing Puckerman his ass on a platter." Blaine watched the room's other occupants rotate, Tina and Brittany taking over on the DDR, Puck and Mike standing off in the corner, and Santana filling Brittany's vacated space on the bed next to Blaine. "So, Hobbit, today was impressive."

Blaine groaned, falling backwards on the bed. "Please don't remind me about that, the more I think about it the more embarrassed I feel."

"Oh please, you should be more embarrassed about that mess you're wearing around your neck. You know no one has pulled off a Bow Tie since the last World War, right?" Blaine laughed, adjusting his bowtie self-consciously. "Kurt's been talking shit to Rachel and Mercedes, who have such big mouths when it comes to gossip that his side of the story was bound to do the rounds. Now, if you were to slip me a little bit of your side of events, I can get the school back with you like _that_." Santana snapped her fingers, smirking.

"I think my outburst today did enough damage, thanks, Santana." Blaine replied, punching Santana on the arm lightly. "If the last week has taught me anything, it's that the only people whose opinions matter are the people who are on my side." Blaine stated, smiling at Santana. "I've got to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how you all ended up on my side…" Blaine faded off, shifting his gaze to look at Puck across the room. Santana followed his eye line, snorting when she spotted Puck.

"One thing I've learnt from a decade of friendship with Noah Puckerman is that you can never predict what he's going to do." Santana revealed with a shrug. "Maybe he was bored, maybe he liked what you were wearing that day, maybe Kurt had annoyed him, or maybe he'd wanted to befriend you for a while." She stated. Across the room, Puck was laughing with Mike about something, and Santana smiled somewhat warmly at him. "I'd be lying if I said he was the most loyal of friends, Baby-gate proved otherwise, but he's getting better, and he does care, even if he doesn't always show it."

The pair sat in companionable silence as Brittany and Tina battled it out, unsurprised when Brittany won with ease. Brittany came to celebrate her success with her girlfriend, leaving Blaine to slide off the bed towards the empty dance mat. He could hear Puck cheering for him, and Santana exclaiming that _bowtie doesn't stand a hope in hell_. It only took Blaine a minute to realise that her statement was most probably correct, as Mike slid onto the other mat.

"Gonna warn you, I'm really, really good at this." Mike grinned, and he was. Blaine was fighting a losing battle; he barely missed a move, but Mike didn't miss any, completely dominating the game. Blaine mock-bowed at the Asian as they finished, and Mike pulled them in for a bro-hug. "Good game, man."

"You're really good at that." Blaine stated.

"Of course he is, he practices for like 3 hours a day…" Tina pushed her way between the two, snuggling into Mike's side. "Blaine, you're up again."

"What?" Blaine frowned at Tina. "But I lost?"

"We need four people for semi-finals, Blaine, and you got highest score from the losers." Mike clapped his hand on Blaine's shoulder, pushing him back towards the dance mats. "You against Santana."

It was going better than expected, until Blaine felt a tickling behind his right knee. It wasn't enough to knock him over, but more than enough to distract him, and he looked up in time to see Santana celebrating. Blaine looked around, glaring when he realised the source of the tickling.

"Oops?" Puck smirked, feather duster in hand, as Blaine crashed down beside him on the bed.

"I was on track to win!" Blaine laughed, digging his knuckles lightly in to Puck's ribs. "Not happy with you."

"Then why are you smiling?" Puck countered, brow raised. Blaine shrugged, smile still set in place. "You seem better."

"I feel better." Blaine confirmed, settling into a comfortable position to watch Brittany and Mike wage war on the dance mats. The two lay in comfortable silence for a few minutes, until Blaine turned to face Puck, grin firmly in place. "Thank you for this, I didn't know how much I needed it."

"Just fulfilling my brole, Anderson." Puck smirked, the pair of them watching as Mike destroyed Brittany at DDR. Brittany pouted, giving up her mat as Tina cheered wildly in the corner. "Five dollars says Santana's going to win it. Girl fights dirty."

"Have you seen Mike dance?" Blaine asked incredulously, holding out a hand to shake on it. "You're on."

The funny thing was, even as he watched incredulously as Santana stamped, elbowed and tickled her way to an unlikely victory, Blaine couldn't stop smiling. The people in the room were a ragtag group, for sure, but for the first time all week, Blaine was in a room with more than 2 people, yet no one was glaring at him, and that felt so, so good.

* * *

_Thanks to everyone for the feedback, for such a small fandom I love how vocal Plainers are! Requests and reviews are welcome. _


	3. Finding out they're moving on

_**Step Three - Finding out they're moving on.**_

* * *

The mini-bus for regionals would be leaving McKinley at 5am. Blaine lived 45 minutes from school. Really, staying at Puck's was just the logical thing to do.

That didn't mean that Blaine didn't feel at least a little weirded out by the whole thing.

The unlikely pair had been good friends for almost a month. They weren't exactly inseparable, but they ate lunch together almost every day and would car-share occasionally. There was one occasion (never to be repeated) when Puck had forced Blaine onto the death-trap he called a motorbike, and one when Blaine had forced Puck into his Mom's pink Micra. They sang cheesy duets together in the car, sparred together after school and sat together in Glee. They were non-conventional, but they worked.

Getting into bed (for a second time, no less) with the straightest boy at McKinley still felt wrong, though. Blaine had brought a sleeping bag, but Puck had already made it clear that they'd both be sharing the bed. Santana was round for the moment, masking Blaine's quietness behind her ability to talk enough for two, but when she left, Blaine would have no idea what to do.

The process of becoming friends with Santana had been bizarre, to say the least. After the infamous _It's Not Right_ incident, she wasted no time in publically joining Puck on Team Blaine, telling everyone that she and Mohawk were a 'package deal'. She would occasionally appear at Puck's house without warning, sometimes alone, sometimes with Brittany, and there was a constant expectation of entertainment, usually in the form of bickering with Puck.

Watching Santana and Puck converse was like watching an Olympic sport. The pair of them sparred with words, the permanent attempts at one-upmanship hiding a deep-seated, genuine friendship that the pair would never admit to. They were so similar at times, it was uncanny, and Blaine very quickly found a hobby in watching their interactions. They were like warring siblings; permanently at each other's throats, but if someone tried to hurt the other, there'd be hell to pay. Blaine smiled to himself as the pair stood nose to nose, yelling in a bizarre mix of fluent Spanish (from Santana) and broken Spanish/English (from Puck). Really, it was no surprise the pair had played Anita and Bernardo in _West Side Story_. The mix of anger and affection was perfect.

The argument petered off as quickly as it began, with the pair suddenly switching from angry to quiet, sticking with Spanish as they talked at length. They kept occasionally glancing over at Blaine, and Blaine found himself wondering why on earth he'd taken French and German at Dalton.

"So, Blaine," Santana switched back to English and sat down next to Blaine, making him start a little. "What's the 411 on your big gay search for a groom? You and Kurt have been split for a month now, that's like 5 years in McKinley time." The words were teasing, but Santana's tone was strained, and Blaine frowned momentarily.

"There aren't that many other gay options floating around McKinley." Blaine shrugged. "I've not really been looking further afield just yet. Besides, now that the Chandler thing has petered out, Kurt is single, so it's not like I'm being too slow in moving on." The silence accompanying that statement felt wrong, and as Blaine glanced between the two guilty faces before him, he knew something was going on. "What do you know?"

"Santana…" Puck's voice was a warning, and Blaine frowned.

"The boy has a right to know, Noah, everyone else does." She replied tiredly, turning back to Blaine. "You heard about Karofsky, right? About, his…" Santana paused, searching for the right word. "… accident. Kurt's been helping him through it." Her hand rested just below her neck, and she clawed at her necklace slightly. "They're helping each other through it, and Kurt has admitted that it's getting serious."

"Karofsky?" Blaine whispered to himself. He could feel Puck giving him a sharp, searching look, but ignored it in favour of frowning at Santana, who just shook her head. He glanced across at Puck, who nodded the affirmative.

"Yeah, Karofsky." Puck frowned, staring at his hands as they clenched and unclenched.

"So, Kurt is moving on." Blaine sighed, running a hand over his gelled hair. "Like, _moving on_. Don't get me wrong, I can't begrudge him or Dave for it, especially after all that's happened, it's just… I can't believe he's moving on…"

"Oh don't sound so sad, Curly, it's clearly a major downgrade." Santana tried to sound chipper, but failed miserably. They all sat in silence for a few minutes, quietly contemplating what Dave had attempted. "It could have been any of us, you know?" Santana continued. "I was his friend, I was his _beard_, and I didn't even notice." Santana stated, and Puck slid along the sofa, throwing an arm across Santana's shoulders. Blaine slid closer, reaching across to place a hand on Santana's knee, and she looked at him, eyes wide. "I assumed you'd be able to see it coming. That it would be predictable, but it's not." Her eyes took on a hard edge, looking at Blaine even more intently. "It could have been us. He tried to kill himself over homophobic bullying. It could have been you, or me, or Brittany, or Kurt, and our parents could have not come home, and that would have been it."

"But it wasn't." Blaine climbed off the couch, sitting on the floor before Santana. "And now Dave has Kurt, and you have Brittany, and no one has to be alone."

"Who do you have?" Santana's question hung in the air, sapping any form of response from Blaine, because he knew, romantically, he had nothing. He was about to say as much when Puck slid down onto the carpet beside him, leaving one hand on Santana's shoulder and wrapping the other arm around Blaine.

"He has the world's most epic bromance, that's what he has." Puck smiled at both of them, and Santana looked for a moment as if she was going to press further, but she resisted, and the trio sat in silence, each wrapped up in their own thoughts.

Eventually Santana broke the silence, trying to lift spirits once more. "We need to find you a hot piece of rebound ass, Anderson." She started, wiping the traces of tears from her cheeks. "Karofsky and Kurt can go be happy together, and we'll find you someone to be happy about, too.

"I don't know..." Blaine petered off, looking at the pair of them pensively. "I mean, there are not that many gay guys floating around McKinley."

"What about at your old stomping grounds?" Santana suggested, sadness lifting and being slowly replaced by interest. "How about Sebastian? He might not be sunshine and joy, but he's easy on the eyes."

"No." Blaine turned sharply as Puck replied on his behalf. "The douche-bag threw rock salt in Blaine's eye. He's a no-fly zone."

"Oh is he?" Blaine bit back, brows raised.

"Don't give me attitude, Anderson." Puck replied. He stood up, stretching in a rather delicious way, giving Blaine a pretty good view of his lower abs and happy trail. Blaine snuck a glance, taking advantage of Puck's closed eyes, before remembering Santana was in the room. He looked across guiltily and found her smirking at him through the remaining tears, eyebrow raised. "You only want him because I've said you can't have him. 'Sides, he seems like the fuck'em and leave'em type." Puck continued, oblivious to the looks being shared by the room's other occupants. "We'll find you someone better. San, arrange a night out at Scandals. Bring Brittany." Santana perked up, grinning at Puck.

"We gon' gets our drink on, Puckerman?" Santana asked, grabbing her bag. "You can get the fake IDs for you two, right? I've got Britts and I covered."

"Oh, please, I could get fake IDs in my sleep."

"You guys really don't need to take me to…" Blaine trailed off, catching the matching looks of distaste on Santana and Puck's faces.

"I'll text you the details, Puck." Santana stated, throwing her coat over her shoulders. "I've got to get back, Brittany starts keening after 3 hours without a bit of somethin' somethin'. I'll see you around, Anderson; don't let Puck talk you into going further than third base, he will rip you a new one." Santana winked, leaning in until Blaine was centimetres away. "_Literally." _Blaine laughed as she held her hands out, signalling a distance of about three foot. She walked over to Puck, leaning in for a quick hug.

"If anything happens to Curly, I'm holding you as personally responsible." Santana chastised, grabbing Puck's head and placing a hard, almost aggressive kiss on the tip of his Mohawk. Her eyes scrunched shut for a moment as she held him there, before she pulled back and tapped him on the cheek lightly. "You kids be good, now."

"Yes Mom." Puck rolled his eyes, shepherding Santana out of the door. The pair some final words in Spanish, with Puck giving her another quick hug before closing the door behind her. "Alone at last." Puck smirked from the doorframe. "Wanna go play Mario Kart until we pass out?" Blaine rolled his eyes, but stood anyway, and the pair headed for Puck's bedroom. Puck set the game up, and soon enough they were lying on their stomachs, locked in a race.

Playing Mario Kart was fun, but required very little concentration, and Blaine found his mind wandering back to Karofsky. Blaine had been through the mill with homophobia, but he had grown up with the bullying, had time to adjust. Karofsky had gone from the top of the food chain to the bottom in mere seconds, and fallen with a bump. Blaine couldn't begin to imagine the emotional strife that would bring; the Sadie Hawkins incident had been hard enough, and he'd _known _people hated him, known they might try something stupid.

Blaine glanced across at Puck and felt guilt clawing at his stomach. Blaine had never known Puck at the height of his popularity, but he was still relatively popular at McKinley. Would he keep that popularity if the jocks could see him now, lying on a bed with a gay man? He knew from Glee Club that Puck was already being abused by Azimio for even talking to Blaine; could he handle the tirade of abuse that would come from friendship?

"Do you have any idea how many people are desperate to be exactly where you are now, Blaine?" Puck teased, bumping his shoulder against Blaine's. Blaine flinched at the reminder of his incongruity with the bed's previous occupants, shuffling away from Puck slightly.

"About as many as have been here already?" Blaine bit back, standing up and moving to sit on the desk chair.

"Touché." Puck smirked back, eyes not leaving the screen. "Get your ass back over here, you can't see the screen properly from there."

"I think it would be best if I stayed here." Blaine decided, struggling to see the screen from his vantage point. "Maybe slept on the floor, as well…" Puck glanced across sharply, hands freezing as he stared at Blaine.

"What do you mean by that?" Puck frowned, pausing their game and putting the controller aside.

Blaine scratched the back of his neck, wishing he'd said nothing. "Are you not, y'know, nervous? About what the other Jocks would say if they knew I was here? I've heard them making comments for just talking to me, Puck, what if they knew I was on your bed, even in a platonic way?"

Puck clambered to a sitting position, facing Blaine. "Dude, if there's one thing I've learnt from Glee – and never tell Schue I said this – it's that you shouldn't give a shit about the opinions of jerkwads." Puck shrugged. "Santana took shit for screwing women, but she's still the best, hottest lesbian ever. Rachel takes shit every day for being Rachel Berry, but she's still gonna be a star. And you take shit for your bow tie fetish, but the Puckster is still willing let you into his bed, which, by the way, is practically confirmed gay, but I'm okay with it, because you're awesome, and if people want to read into this, fuck them."

"I have a bow tie fetish?"

"Seriously, anyone that owns as many bowties as you do should seek help." Puck affirmed. "You're my bro, and I'm willing to do some crazy shit to keep you happy. I'll put on a dress and tell everyone to call me Lola, if that's what it takes."

"As tempting as that is, I think I'll have to pass." Blaine smiled, glancing down at his hands and then back to Puck. "Thanks, Puck."

"You'd come and find me or San or Brittany or Mike if things ever got bad, right?" Puck asked, frowning at Blaine. "I know being gay at McKinley isn't all lollypops and joy."

"It's not that bad…" Blaine trailed off at the look of incredulity on Puck's face, smiling stiltedly. "Okay, sometimes it is bad, but it's never… I'd never…"

"Santana's worried about you." Puck stated, reaching across and clapping a hand on Blaine's shoulder. "Dave, he felt alone, and that's fucked up. You know you have us, right?"

"Puck…" Blaine started, stopping when he saw the sharp look gracing Puck's features. "Yes, I know I have you all."

"And if you're ever feeling low…"

"I'll call someone." Blaine finished, Puck's face telling him to elaborate. "I'll call you."

"Good." Puck stated, looking at Blaine warily. "Now get your ass over here so I can beat you fair and square." Blaine clambered back onto the bed, and the pair lay down again. "Okay?" Puck muttered, smiling at Blaine as his thumb hovered over the Start button.

"Okay."

* * *

It stung.

Blaine was glad that Santana had forewarned him about Kurtofsky (even the portmanteau of their names made him hurt a little) because, had he not known, it would have been even more painful. He couldn't resent the unlikely pair – Lord knew they needed each other – but that didn't lessen the pain in his own chest.

He hurt because he missed Kurt, and the comfort of being in a relationship. He hurt because the first person he had ever loved was moving on and he was right where Kurt left him. He hurt because in that single kiss, stolen in the shadows after their Regionals win, he'd seen more love and passion than he'd ever experienced in his life.

The bitterness of being left behind hurt, yet the heavy hand that came to rest on his shoulder dulled the pain. Blaine tingled as Puck's hand ran from his shoulder down to his waist, the slightest of squeezes before he released said everything that needed to be said. _It's alright. You're okay. It will get better._

The longing in the pit of his stomach that would no longer be suppressed told him he had bigger problems than Kurt now.

* * *

_The next update may be slightly late, apologies. I hope you're enjoying it so far, though! As you can see, it's finally getting a bit more intimate :)_


	4. More to Life Than One Relationship

_Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this story up to here, and I'm sorry for the delay in posting this chapter; sometimes real life gets in the way! Next chapter is already written, though, so normal posting should resume shortly. Also, I forgot to mention it in the last chapter, but the reason I had Puck speaking half-decent Spanish is because his first song on the show was IN Spanish - in Acafellas, Puck singing La Camisa Negra was used as backing music for his introduction (everyone who was too busy staring at his abs to notice raise your hands!)._

_This chapter is the last one before things start to get a bit more Plaine-y, enjoy!_

* * *

_**Realising there's more to life than one relationship.**_

* * *

The Finchel wedding may have been pegged as the Glee 'Event of the Season', but Blaine found that he was more than okay with not going. Rachel had invited him out of courtesy, but at such a small wedding, the only people present should be friends and loved ones, and Blaine knew that he fit into neither of those categories, so he declined the invitation, settling in for a quiet afternoon lounging in his room instead. It wasn't all that exciting, but it was far better than intruding on a wedding, and he could wear sweatpants instead of a suit, which was far more comfortable.

Anyway, Kurt's Facebook updates kept him more than up to date with proceedings. Blaine rolled his eyes every time a new status appeared, glaring at the semi-platonic profile picture of Kurt and Karofsky accusingly. The pair weren't officially together, but Karofsky had begun arranging a transfer back to McKinley, and they were rarely seen apart. The amount of in-jokes the pair publicly shared on social media was disgusting, never mind that Blaine had the same kitsch in-jokes with Kurt less than two months ago...

Puck had agreed to come over as soon as the happy couple were wed, and Blaine was glad; he really fancied a whine about Kurt, and Puck was good at pretending to listen, occasionally even listening. Mike was keeping him updated on the wedding via text, and had sent a photo of the groomsmen across; the four of them looked dapper, Artie had even convinced Puck to put some gel in the Mohawk. The jealousy Blaine occasionally oppressed regarding Puck's friendship with Finn was counteracted by the joy on the older teen's face when Finn had asked him to be best man, and he looked equally happy in the photo of the four groomsmen.

Just as the ceremony was due to begin, Blaine left the PC, moving to play around on his electronic keyboard instead. He practiced a few songs for Glee, but mostly just let his fingers lead, wincing when chords clashed.

The unique sense of peace that came from playing the black and white keys lulled Blaine into a blissful state. His eyes drifted shut as he found contentment in the music, smiling to himself as he played.

It was only after almost an hour that he realised the occasional texts from Mike and Puck had dropped to no texts at all. Blaine frowned at his phone, scrambling over to his laptop instead. Kurt hadn't updated his Facebook in 46 minutes, and Blaine's frown deepened. Sure, Rachel could have called for a media blackout, but that shouldn't have stopped Mike or Puck from texting after the ceremony, and the ceremony itself should have only been 10 minutes. Blaine paused, trying to decide who to text, before settling on Mike; Puck never put his phone on silent, if the ceremony was just delayed, the last thing Blaine wanted to do was interrupt.

Blaine kept it short and sweet, a quick _Everything going okay? X_ saying all that needed to be said. Blaine had no idea what response he was expecting, but never in a million years did he imagine the reply would be what it was.

_No, man. Quinn's been in a car accident, the wedding is off. Puck's driving Rach, Finn, Santana and Britt to see her. X_

Blaine blinked at the screen blankly, before his fingers took over and typed a response. _Oh my god. What happened? Is she going to be okay? X_

_Not sure, Blaine. She's not conscious yet and the car's a write off. Puck said he'd update us when he got there. Everyone is pretty cut up about it. X_

Blaine sat in shocked silence for a moment, taking time to digest what he had just read. Despite not being one of her best friends, Blaine liked Quinn; for the most part, she was a nice girl. For her to be injured or worse was incorrigible.

It would mess with Puck's mind more than he was willing to admit, Blaine knew. Quinn was Beth's mom, Puck's first love, and Mrs Fabray would have most likely phoned Puck to let the Glee club know about Quinn's accident. That the role of informer had fallen upon his head was an extra weight to bear.

Blaine pottered around his room anxiously, looking for something, anything to do while he waited for news. He thought about texting Puck, but figured he was probably stressed enough without someone else contacting him. Eventually, Blaine gave up, flopping onto the bed and lying still, letting his mind run circles as he tried to process everything that had happened that day. He let his eyes scrunch shut for a second, then relax, leaving his eyes closed loosely as he took a moment to send happy thoughts.

Blaine stayed like that for far longer than he should have, just hoping for the best. By the time he opened his eyes again, the sun had almost set, casting an orange tinge across the room. His phone vibrated, and he rolled to answer, frowning at the cryptic message from Puck that lay before him.

_Don't freak out._ Blaine frowned, jumping when the windowpane nearest his bed slid up. He froze for a second, relaxing marginally when Puck appeared. "Hey Anderson." Puck stated tiredly, climbing into the room. Blaine clambered up from the bed, crossing the room and pulling Puck into an awkward but comforting hug. "I saw your parents were in, figured it was best to sneak straight up here." Puck mumbled into Blaine's hair.

"Probably for the best." Blaine pulled away, stepping back but leaving a hand on Puck's shoulder. "Mike told me what happened. How is Quinn? Are you okay?"

"Quinn's still not conscious, but everyone is hopeful." Puck nodded. He ran an anxious hand over his Mohawk, muscles tense from stress. "I didn't get to see her, I just dropped off flowers – it's still family only in her room, and apparently Baby-Daddy doesn't count as a relative." Puck sighed, clasping Blaine's forearm. "Docs said something's wrong with her spine. Her chances of waking up are really good, but she may never walk again."

"How are you doing?"

"Alright. Keeping busy. Mrs Fabray needed someone to yell at, so I let her take it out on me. If it was Beth in that bed I know I'd be punching shit, so she did pretty well to keep it to verbal abuse." Puck shrugged, turning his back on Blaine and sitting on the bed heavily. His head found his hands, and he shrugged over, staring at the floor pensively. "It's so fucked up. Everyone is so upset."

"How are you taking it, Puck?"

"Fine. Rachel won't stop blaming herself. She seemed to think that the Wedding caused the crash, which is bullshit. Finn is being all quiet and gormless, so I sat with them for a while." "The two of them are so fucking incompatible sometimes; Finn can't see that Rachel needs reassurance, and Rachel can't see that Finn is hurting too."

"Puck…"

"Took Santana and Britt home. Santana is a mess, I don't know if Britt realises how serious Quinn's condition is, she seemed to think that doing a report on spinal injuries would help the doctors, and neither San or I had the heart to stop her."

"Noah…" Blaine tried again, voice mere decibels above a whisper. The first name caught Puck's attention, and he looked up briefly, before staring at the floor once more.

"Quinn is a cut-throat bitch, but she is my cut-throat bitch, you know?" Puck stated, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not in love with her, or anything sappy like that, but she will always be one of my girls, just like San or Britt, and it sucks that, just as everything started going right for her, something shit like this happens."

"She's strong." Blaine replied, arms crossed tightly across his chest. "She'll get through this."

"I've never been more proud of her than when she sang _Never Can Say Goodbye_." Puck stated, smiling to himself. "She's been pinging between Finn, Sam and me for the last few years. If anyone deserves a clean break after McKinley, it's her." Blaine nodded in response, and Puck sighed, rolling his shoulders. "Being in a wheelchair isn't the end of the world, Wheels proves that."

"No, it's not the end of the world." Blaine agreed, perching beside Puck on the bed. "It's not going to be easy, though."

"No one said it would." Puck countered, no real force behind his words. "She'll do it, though. She'll survive." The pair sat in silence, side by side on the bed, until Puck rolled his shoulders, trying to abate the tension there. "I'm giving Rory, Santana and Britt a lift to McKinley on Monday. You want me to swing by here first?" He offered. "No one else really wants to drive. Mr Schue is giving Mercedes, Kurt and Finchel lifts, and Sam is doing the rest of the Glee club that live too far to walk in."

"Are you okay to drive?" Blaine countered, frowning. Puck shrugged, glancing at Blaine briefly.

"I'll manage."

"If there is a space, a lift would be nice." Blaine replied. The pair fell into a comfortable silence, both trapped in their own thoughts. Puck was breathing heavily, and it dug at Blaine's chest until he finally brought a hand up, resting it firmly on Puck's shoulder. Puck's own hand clasped over Blaine's, and they remained like that for a few minutes.

"Blaine?" Puck stated, and Blaine glanced across, pursing his lips and gripping Puck's shoulder that little bit tighter. "Thanks."

"Anytime, Noah."

"I should get home, it's late."

"Sleep here tonight." It was somewhere between a question and a statement, Blaine not leaving any real room for argument. "My parents are off to a conference first thing, they won't come up here, so we can sleep in a bit, if that suits you?"

"Yeah, that works." Puck agreed, shrugging off his shoes and removing the top layer of clothes. "Visiting hours at the hospital are midday til four; I'll head across to see Quinn then." Blaine began preparing for bed too, and within minutes the pair were settled in. Blaine snuck a glance at Puck, mentally realising that they'd somehow developed a Morecambe and Wise style routine of sharing a bed. Smiling to himself for a moment, he closed his eyes, only reopening them when Puck struck up a conversation minutes later.

"So, just before the shit hit the fan, I overheard Tina complaining that Kurt was updating his facebook every millisecond." Puck's voice was tired, thick with the need for sleep, and Blaine suddenly realised that this was Puck's attempt at giving Blaine what he wanted. Despite the trauma of the day and everything that had happened, Puck was still trying to think about how Blaine felt, and Blaine's heart jumped.

"Yeah, he was." Blaine agreed, smiling warmly at Puck for a moment. "It doesn't matter, though. Go to sleep, Puck."

"I thought that pissed you off?" Puck asked, eyes drifting shut before he had a chance to finish the question.

"Sometimes things happen that remind you there's no point sweating over the small stuff." Blaine replied, the tired smile gracing his features as he finally rolled over to get some rest.


	5. Looking for Someone New

_I'm expecting some anger after this chapter, but remember, the darkest hour is that before dawn. Okay? Okay! Also, I speak European Spanish, not South American Spanish, so my translating might be a bit… iffy. You guys are dealing admirably with my poor attempts at using American English instead of British English, though, so I'm sure you can power through! There is very little Spanish used, so it shouldn't be too painful._

* * *

_**Looking for someone new**_

* * *

"What about that one?" Puck pointed across the dancefloor, picking out a relatively well-dressed man, and Blaine laughed, shaking his head.

"He has a mullet!"

"Something to hold onto." Puck smirked, laughing at Blaine's disgusted look. He checked the crowd again, pointing to another man. "What about him? He's not got a mullet."

"He's about 50, and bald as a baby."

"Not into DILFs, huh?" Blaine screwed up his nose, and Puck laughed. It had taken almost a month – far longer than Santana and Puck had intended, Blaine was sure – but the quartet had finally made it to Scandals, and the dirty duo of Puck and Santana seemed intent on ensuring Blaine had a good night. It was spring break, and the place was heaving with gyrating bodies. "Fine, then, who _do_ you want?" Puck asked, giving Blaine a shove when he shrugged. "At least give me a clue as to what your taste is!" Puck yelled over the thumping bass. Blaine grinned slightly, playing with his bowtie. "You want another Kurt? Or a big macho man? Give me a ballpark, please!"

Blaine laughed. How they'd ended up here, sat at the bar, watching Santana and Brittany whip up a storm on the dance floor, he didn't know. What he did know was that he was having far more fun sitting with Puck, scoping out the potential partners, than he ever would have if he left with someone. It had been over two months since he broke up with Kurt, and Blaine knew it was time to start putting himself out there, but doing it was far scarier than it should have been, and staying in the safe, comfortable company of Puck was by far the most interesting and unintimidating option.

The pair of them looked mismatched, for sure. Puck had 'dressed up' by putting on a black shirt instead of his usual wife-beater, but aside from that, he looked the exact same as he did at McKinley – dangerous and smouldering, if a little scruffy. Blaine, however, looked very different. Puck and Santana had threatened to throw Blaine fully dressed into a cold shower if he even _tried_ to wear hair gel, a motion Brittany very much supported, so he was gel-free, and, besides the bow-tie, his outfit was more attuned to a glee performance than his usual school attire. A smart-casual mop in a bowtie, as Santana had so kindly dubbed him. Yet here he was, next to one of the hottest guys in the bar.

Blaine had seen the looks some people had thrown him; with his physique and rare macho aesthetic, Blaine knew a guy like Puck would be hot property in here, and since it looked like he was there with Blaine, there were a lot of envious glares coming his way. One guy was even brave enough to allude to a threesome. Puck may have been scaring off suitors, but it was nice to have him here; Scandals was hardly Puck's typical club, but he'd joined the three of them with no resistance, insistent that they needed him to keep them in line. He was quite useful, in all honesty, especially as he'd offered to be the designated driver. His motives for offering were unclear; Puck had joked that he needed his wits about him in a gay bar, but Brittany had let it slip that Puck had mentioned wanting to ensure the three of them had a good time and didn't deal with any bashers on the way out.

"I don't know, I guess I'll know when I see it." Blaine answered, staring at Puck for almost a moment too long. Brittany and Santana left the dance-floor, bouncing over to the pair at the bar.

"Blaine, come dance with us!" Brittany yelled, taking Blaine's hands and trying to pull him onto the dance-floor.

"You've got no hope of getting any action if you spend the whole night next to Puck." Santana stated, leaning over Puck's back and stroking his face. "He'll scare away all of the pretty gays."

Blaine looked at Puck, who nodded, tipping his head towards the dance-floor. "Go have some fun. I'll be here when you're done." Blaine smiled, letting Brittany pull him to the dance-floor with almost no resistance.

The three of them danced together for about an hour. Every time Blaine tried to slip away, Santana would be right by his side, either mouthing or screaming _this is my jam!_, which Blaine believed for the first 5 songs, but really, how many jams could one girl have?

Santana was, however, vetoing Blaine's potential suitors, for which he was eternally grateful. Every undesirable that came over was sent away just as quickly with a cutting insult, though Santana's standards were clearly far higher than his own, because the guy in the yellow skinnies had been _cute._

Brittany kept making the three of them take test tube shots from the shotgirls on the dance floor, and Blaine could feel himself getting progressively more drunk, watching Brittany and Santana go the same way.

Finally, Blaine started moving off the dance floor, determined to get a non-alcoholic drink. Santana grabbed his wrist with a smile, trying to get him to dance again. "I'm going to die of dehydration." Blaine joked over the music. Santana's face dropped a little, and suddenly she was pulling him into a half hug.

"Puck is a very secretive guy." She said into Blaine's ear. "Bear that in mind and don't take it personally, ok?" She pulled away, rubbing Blaine's arm reassuringly before continuing to dance with Brittany, eyes not leaving Blaine.

Even after Santana's cryptic warning, when Blaine came back, the last thing he expected to see was Puck being pressed into the wall by some lithe thing that was undeniably _male_. The stranger could not take his eyes off Puck, and Puck was smirking as the stranger leaned in. Blaine's stomach dropped as the pair began making out, Puck pushing up into the skinny yellow-jeaned _whore._ Blaine started to consider his options – throwing the world's largest shit-fit being the top contender - when Puck spotted him from the corner of his eye, freezing mid-kiss.

Blaine knew his face was giving him away, knew that he looked like he'd just been slapped, so he turned on his heel and hightailed it out of the club as fast as possible, before Puck even had time to disentangle himself.

* * *

"Will you slow the fuck down?" Puck jogged after Blaine after the stormy exit from the club. They were jogging away from the car, into a neighbourhood that neither of them really knew, and it made Puck edgy.

"No."

"I'm your ride home." Puck argued, grabbing Blaine's wrist and pulling him back. "You live an hour away. Go and get in the car."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Blaine span on his heel, pushing against Puck's chest. "_Oh hey Blaine, I think I like banging dudes now._ Would that have been so hard? Do you have any idea how _alone _I feel in this town sometimes, and how _nice _it would have been to know that my _best friend_ was fooling around with guys?"

"Dude, I've not been having some secret gay life." Puck argued back. "It was just a kiss, I just wanted to experiment..."

"And you never thought to experiment with _me_?" The silence seemed to echo through the empty streets, and Blaine shook his head. "Sorry, I didn't – it wasn't meant to sound like, well, that." He affirmed, lowering himself to sit on the curb. "It's just, you slept with Quinn, you slept with Santana and Brittany, I thought, if you were gay, you'd aim for me, because, y'know, I'm a friend."

"You were never the guy I was going to fool around with, Blaine." Puck argued back, sitting down beside his friend. "You don't deserve to be used like that."

"And the guy in the club did deserve it?" Blaine laughed bitterly.

"The guy in the club knew exactly what he was getting into."

"So now I'm some innocent little virgin who needs protecting, Puck?" Blaine huffed.

"Yes, you are." Puck snapped back, taking a deep breath. Blaine, he had alcohol in his system, he had an excuse for acting irrationally. There was no reason for Puck to lose it, and he knew it. "Talking things through isn't my way." Puck kicked the road lightly, leaning back on to his elbows. "I wanted to figure out exactly what I was feeling, and I didn't want it to matter in the morning."

"So figure it out with me." Blaine knew he was drunk, that the alcohol was impeding his judgement, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "I know I'm not the most attractive guy, but we are friends, and friends help each other out, right?" He stated, leaning in. "I can be subtle, I can do this now and never mention it again. So let me help you with this." Blaine whispered, grabbing Puck's shoulders and pulling him forward. Puck laughed a little nervously, manoeuvring them into a less intimate half-hug when he saw Blaine's affronted face.

"Dude, you're the most attractive guy I know, but I'm not doing this with you."

"Why not?"

"Because. We're in an alley outside Scandals. You're drunk. I was kissing someone else 5 minutes ago. You're still all sad after Kurt." He rubbed Blaine's arm reassuringly. "You're drunk and probably won't remember this in the morning, so I'm gonna say it. You're one of my best friends, Blaine, and you believe in love. I am not going to be the guy who turns you into someone that screws around in clubs and alleys." Puck stood, hauling Blaine to his feet as he went. "Come on, let's get you home."

"I don't know if I want to go home with a whore that won't put out." Blaine knew in the recesses of his mind that his words would hurt, felt Puck tense beside him, but for once, Blaine didn't want to be the one hurting. Puck didn't release his hold, though, didn't get angry like Blaine wanted; he just kept pulling Blaine towards the car.

"Well I don't know if I want to go home with a whiny bitch, so I guess we're both in the shit." Puck hit back, dragging Blaine to the car. Blaine had no fight left in him and let Puck half carry him to the truck, unsurprised to see Santana and Britt already waiting beside the beat up Sedan. Brittany looked pouty, most likely about leaving the club early, but Santana was keeping her in check, glancing anxiously between Puck and Blaine.

"Everything okay here?"

"Peachy." Puck spat back, pushing Blaine into the car. Brittany and Santana took the backseat, talking somewhat nervously between themselves, whilst Puck and Blaine sat in stony silence in the front bench. Blaine's head was pounding, and his heart hurt more than he was willing to admit. He knew he'd hurt Puck, knew that _Whore _was the last word he should have used, and he knew that he needed to be the one to make it better, but the words wouldn't come to him, especially not with two of Puck's previous conquests in the car.

They made it halfway to Santana's house before Santana pitched forward, head placed directly between Puck and Blaine, sick of the tense silence.

"Okay, I'm not 100% sure what happened between the two of you, but I get the impression it might have something to do with the hot piece of ass Puckerman was swapping spit with."

"Santana, _por favor_…" Puck rolled his eyes, glaring at Santana through the rear-view mirror.

"_No diga nada!_" Santana snapped, hitting Puck on the shoulder. "Blaine, it's not Puck's fault he'll fuck anything that moves, and Puck, it's not Blaine's fault that he has a stick up his ass, so kiss and make up." The pair looked apprehensive, and Santana reached forward, clipping both of them around the ears. "_Vengan!_"

Puck sighed, turning to face Blaine once he'd pulled up to a red light. "It was just a kiss, I was never going to ditch you losers for him. We cool?" Blaine nodded slightly, eyes barely open as the drowsy effects of alcohol kicked in. "Don't even pretend you've never had a silly drunken argument, San. But it's fine now. Happy?"

Santana looked unconvinced by the pair's truce, but shrugged it off. "No, you made me leave a club before 2am." Santana retorted, leaning back into her seat. "You both owe Britt and I a full night out." Blaine sighed, opening his window slightly in the hopes that the cool night air would wake him up a little. It was no use, he could feel his eyes getting heavy, weighed down by a night of thoughts and a quart of alcohol. He could hear the other three conversing, but couldn't bring himself to pay attention, slowly sinking into a deep, deep slumber.

* * *

Blaine woke up the next morning in a vaguely familiar empty bed, squinting as the sunlight bit at his pupils. Spotting an accordion placed haphazardly on the chair, Blaine very quickly realised exactly whose bed he was in, and immediately began trying to piece together the events of the night before.

He remembered anger, loud music and cheap alcohol, but without some form of caffeine in his system, the other details were out of reach. Throwing off the covers - thank God, he was still fully dressed - Blaine swayed slightly, before moving to the door, stumbling through the house until he reached the kitchen, where he found Puck, sat in his sweats and - heavens - nothing else.

"Morning." Puck smiled stiffly, gesturing for Blaine to take a seat. "The breakfast options are toast with the mouldy bits cut off, or stale cereal. Take your pick."

Blaine's stomach protested at both options, and he frowned with disgust. "I think I'll just stick with coffee, thank you." He replied, sliding into one of the chairs crammed into the small kitchen. "Puck, I've got to be honest, I don't really remember much of last night. Why am I here?"

"You fell asleep in the truck." Puck replied. "I figured delivering you home as you were last night would have gone down like a lead balloon, so I had Santana phone your parents and tell them you were staying at hers."

"And I got to the bed…"

"In my arms, bridal style." Puck smirked, sitting on the kitchen counter as the coffee brewed. "The classy way to travel. Don't worry, I slept on the couch." Puck reached for the milk, sniffing it cautiously and almost immediately chucking it in the bin. "You drink your coffee black, right?"

"That's fine." Blaine shrugged. "I made a fool of myself last night, didn't I?"

"Well, you told me I was your best friend, then propositioned me in a deserted alley." Puck stated with a smirk. "I'd say it was one of your classier moments." Blaine's stomach dropped further than he thought possible, and he covered his face with his hands, glancing at Puck sheepishly. His memory was patchy at best, but he did remember certain flashes, and Blaine tried his damnedest to remember the exact events.

"Puck, I'm so, so sorry!"

"Dude, have you seen me recently?" Puck asked, flexing his arm muscles and smirking. He passed across a hot mug of coffee, leaning his elbows on the table. "You were drunk and horny, I was there looking like this, what else could you do?" He patted Blaine's shoulder, "Really, if you hadn't made a move, I would have been offended."

Blaine focussed more as the room fell silent, struggling to remember the exact details of what happened. He remembered yellow jeans, cold sidewalks and betrayal. Strong hands, spinning vision and offers. Stony anger, hurt and a single word that burned.

"Noah?" Puck glanced across, and Blaine held his gaze for a moment, before looking away somewhat abashedly. "I'm so sorry I called you a whore."

"Sorry I called you a whiny bitch." Puck replied, walking around the kitchen table and clasping his hand firmly on Blaine's shoulder. "You _are_ hot, you know. Smokin'. I didn't turn you down because you were unattractive."

"You're not a whore." Puck scoffed, and Blaine frowned. "I mean it! I don't think you're a whore, I was just lashing out."

"I am sometimes." Puck countered, chugging his coffee and slamming the mug down on the table. "I don't get $200 tips for doing a good job on the pool, let's put it that way. Same way you're a whiny bitch sometimes." There was no malice in the final quip, and Puck was smirking, so Blaine grinned back.

"I'm not a whiny bitch." Blaine argued back, smiling.

"Oh, you totally are." Puck replied with a smirk, amending himself at the last moment. "Sometimes. Only sometimes." Puck winked, and Blaine smiled, continuing to bicker lightly with the Mohawked teen. The conversation petered off, and Blaine found a question hanging on the tip of his tongue, that he just couldn't push away.

"So… How _did_ your experiment go?" Blaine asked, turning to face Puck. "Should I be expecting someone dark, strong and dick-y to come storming through the door to carry you off into the sunset?"

"I'm not sure yet." Puck answered honestly. "The whole dick thing wasn't a complete turn off, but the fact that his mouth tasted of cheap alcopops did nothing for me." He shrugged, sitting on the kitchen counter once more. "I'll do some more experimenting, then get back to you with my findings."

Blaine nodded, distracted. Blaine knew should leave it there, make a joke about the whole affair, but there was a tinge, in the deepest recesses of his heart, that wouldn't let him leave things as they were. He remembered what he'd said to Kurt all that time ago. _Courage. _ "Well, if you ever need assistance, my offer still stands. I've been told I'm a pretty good test subject." His voice was light, almost joking, but there was an edge to it, the edge which begged for a chance. Blaine didn't bother waiting for Puck's response, quietly thanking Puck for the coffee and heading outside, intent on getting some air. Puck stayed motionless for a moment, staring into his own coffee, then glancing to the doorway, pondering as he looked at the space Blaine had recently vacated.

"I'll bear that in mind, Anderson." He stood, staring out the window briefly at Blaine before heading up the stairs to get ready. "I'll bear that in mind."

* * *

_So, next chapter, a certain awesome brother will be making an appearance! Yay! Reviews are the only real evidence as to whether you guys like the story or not, so please take a second and tell me what you think! :)_


	6. Breaking the news to your family

_I have a fantastic excuse for this being late that I'm not going to bore you guys with, but it was very, very fun. My apology comes in the form of a one shot called __**The Most Important Meal of the Day **__which I posted yesterday, I hope you'll forgive me!_

* * *

_**Step 6 - Breaking the news to your family.**_

* * *

Sitting at the back with Puck during Glee made for a unique experience. Blaine very quickly came to realise how many of the Glee club provided Puck with their innermost opinions on song numbers, safe in the knowledge that Puck didn't care enough to spread gossip. It wasn't just Santana or Artie that would lean back to give Puck their opinion, either; often Mercedes or Rachel were just as quick to critique their Glee companions to Puck, safe in the knowledge that he'd keep it to himself.

He also got to see how happy Puck was when Quinn came back, and how annoyed he looked when she made a smarmy quip about sleeping with him being her worst mistake.

"It's insulting." He'd stated later that day as they left Sue's punishing Booty Camp, heading for Blaine's locker. "I'm fucking good at fucking, man. Girl needs to accept that she doesn't have to regret sleeping with me."

"So you don't regret sleeping with her at all?" Blaine asked, glancing at Puck questioningly.

Puck stopped in his tracks, digging around in his pockets until he found his wallet. He slid a photo out, handing it across to Blaine. "Dude, not in the slightest." Puck stated, as Blaine looked at a small, passport sized photo of Beth. "That is not a face to regret." Blaine handed the photo back, smiling at Puck. "Besides, she was fucking awesome in the sack."

"Lovely." Blaine wrinkled his nose, walking over to his locker. Puck walked with him, leaning against the adjacent locker and watching Blaine sort through his things. "Anyway, I've got to hand this project in. My brother's in town, he's picking me up, and taking me out to lunch straight after Glee."

"Carter, right?"

"Cooper." Blaine corrected with a small smile, grabbing his project from his locker. "He's really busy, I don't know if you'll get a chance to meet him, it's a miracle _I _get to meet him some days…"

"Blaine!" Blaine span, mouth agape as his brother walked through the corridor, about an hour before he was expected. "Hey Little Brother!" Cooper exclaimed, dragging Blaine into a hug. He pulled back, examining Puck with interest. "Is this… Kurt?"

"No, Coop, this is Noah Puckerman."

"Dude, you're the guy from those credit ads." Puck stated, giving Cooper the once over. Sue came over, dragging Cooper aside, and Puck turned to face his friend. "Blaine, you never told me your brother was _that guy_."

"I didn't think it was important." Blaine shrugged. He watched Cooper interact with the coach, frowning slightly as he realised Coach Sylvester was putty in his brother's hands.

"Bro, if I had a sibling on TV, I'd never shut up about them." Puck looked across, watching Sue and some cheerios fawn over Cooper, as Kurt stood across the corridor, star struck. "Anyway, Blaine, I've gotta go; I'm pitching a pool-cleaning idea at Finn before Glee, thinking of taking the ol' business stateside when we graduate."

"Ok, have fun." Blaine waved Puck away, before turning back to his big brother, waiting for him to finish with Coach Sylvester. After a quick speech about _salt of the earth _roots and postponed commercials from Cooper, Blaine tugged his brother's hand, smiling up at him. "You're a bit early, but I think I can skip Glee, just this one time. To lunch?"

"I've just got to do one teensy little favour for Mrs Sylvester first, little bro." Cooper flung an arm across Blaine's shoulders, marching behind Coach Sylvester. "Come on, let's get over to your choir room."

"Coop, _please_ don't embarrass me."

"Now why would I do that, B?"

Thirty minutes later, when the pair were locked in a Simon Le Bon-off, Blaine remembered why Cooper would embarrass him; to win favour with people. The girls and Kurt were all drooling over Cooper, that much was obvious, and Blaine felt himself getting competitive. Sure, throwing himself on the piano had been _excessive_, but in order to be seen when you have a brother like _that,_ sometimes drama was required. The only two that _weren't _drooling over Cooper were Sam and Puck, who spent the entire song gossiping like 12 year old girls, which really didn't improve Blaine's mood.

By the time Cooper had praised his own efforts in the number, Blaine was silently seething. It didn't help that Sue had confused him and _Porcelain_, of all people; introducing Cooper as Kurt's brother had made Blaine feel even smaller than he already did, and he found himself wishing that Cooper would just _go back to California already_.

Nonetheless, he went for lunch with his big brother, taking him to the local Breadstix. Halfway through the entrée, Cooper finally asked the question Blaine had been subconsciously dreading.

"So, where _is_ this Kurt I've heard so much about? You've still not introduced me." Blaine sighed, fiddling with his hair for a moment.

"Coop, we broke up."

"And you didn't call your big brother? B, why not?" Cooper frowned, crunching on a breadstick. "Why didn't Mom tell me on our conference call last week?"

"Mom and Dad think we're still together. It's a long story…"

"So, how long have you been broken up for?" Blaine winced, and Cooper's frown deepened. He reached over to give Blaine a quick shove. "Blaine?"

"About two months?"

"_Blaine!_" Cooper exclaimed. "Is there someone new?" He asked, smirking as Blaine spluttered. "Oh, the Anderson blush is giving you away, Blainers! Who is it?"

"No one." Blaine replied hastily, and his brother's brows rose questioningly. "He's… not interested."

"An Anderson always gets his man." Cooper's face lit up, and he lent across the table conspiratorially. "Is he in Glee? Oh, he's in Glee, isn't he? Will he be in my master class tomorrow?"

"Probably… Look, Coop, it doesn't matter, honestly." Blaine frowned, leaning away from the table. "Let's just finish our meals, okay?"

At the master class the next day, between what Blaine considered god-awful advice, Cooper kept examining the class, clearly on the look out for Blaine's crush. Puck was in the back row, leaving Blaine sandwiched between Mike and Rory, and, judging from the appraising looks Cooper was giving Mike, he clearly thought he knew who Blaine's crush was. Blaine tried not to roll his eyes at his brother's ignorance – anyone with observational skill could see Mike was head over heels in love with Tina. The 'master-class' dragged, and Blaine was floored by how seriously his Glee companions were taking the advice. At least Puck was sitting alone this time, Blaine nodded, glaring a little at Sam and trying really hard not to think what his irrational anger towards tall, buff and blond meant.

They moved on to the NCIS re-enactment, and Blaine felt his anger levels rising again, until he finally snapped. "Can't you just support me?"

"Are you talking to me right now? Because I can't tell if you're talking to me if you don't point your finger." Cooper stated, and Blaine silently seethed, stalking out of the room furiously.

* * *

Later that day, Blaine was all but screaming the lyrics to _Fighter_ as he threw his weight against the punch-bag. The anger was near unbearable; how dare Cooper come to his school and demand _he _give up _his _senior ditch day so that Cooper could fail another audition. As Blaine threw another punch, he waited for the punch-bag to fall back to him, but it didn't.

He stopped singing mid-line, glaring at Puck as he held the punch-bag aloft, brow raised. The jock was in his gym kit, tape in hand ready to strap up his knuckles and join in with the boxing, and Blaine took a short moment to enjoy the sight, before frowning once more. "Shouldn't you be at the second master-class with _Sam_?" Blaine snarled, feigning some punches mid-air in lieu of a bag.

Puck pointed at Blaine and yelled, "_I think I've got it down!"_ with a smirk. He dropped the punch-bag in time for Blaine to swing another hit, the private schoolboy pummelling the bag angrily. "I'll let the Sam comment slide for now, but we're talking about that later." Puck's tone left no room for argument, and Blaine huffed angrily. "You know Cooper's just being a big brother, right?"

"He ruined my life."

"Someone's being dramatic today." Puck stated, strapping up his own knuckles as Blaine continued punching the bag. "You PMSing?"

"Fuck you." Blaine snarled, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Seriously, fuck you."

"I've got a little sister." Puck stated calmly, leaning back against the lockers. "I want her to be the best person ever. That's kind of hard when I suck. I give her advice, but following in my footsteps isn't necessarily the best idea. Teen pregnancy, bullying, flunking class, going to juvie… Let's face it, as a big brother I don't lead by example, and my advice is fucking shit." He smirked, and Blaine stopped for a moment, staring at Puck. "He's trying to tell you what worked for him and give you some tough love. That might not work for you, but he just wants you to be good at shit." Puck shrugged. "He's in the auditorium, waiting for you. Go talk to him, sing at him, whatever, but don't let him leave on an argument."

Blaine's body sagged, falling back against the lockers. "I just want him to support me."

"In his own way, he is." Puck levelled, taking over from where Blaine had left off and truly pummelling into the bag, bouncing back into a more relaxed pose to speak to Blaine once more. "Just, go see him, okay? If it blows up in _your_ face, I promise you can replace this punch-bag with _my _face." When Blaine remained stationary, Puck frowned, turning back to the bag. "I kinda said you'd go, dude, don't make a liar out of me."

Blaine watched Puck's fists attack the punch-bag. He pursed his lips, staring for a minute. "You talked to my brother?"

"Of course I did." Puck shrugged tensely as he laid into the bag. "He gave me some dumbass speech about looking after you, and I gave him a dumbass speech about being a good big brother. You're welcome, by the way."

"He gave you a speech?" Blaine gaped, looking nervously at Puck. "Why?"

"Blaine, look at me." Puck stopped punching the bag for a moment, gesturing to himself. "I may as well have _bad influence_ stamped across my forehead, of course I got a speech." Blaine knew it was more than that, knew his big brother wouldn't have bothered with a speech if he hadn't worked out who Blaine had a crush on, and for the first time in years, Blaine thought that his brother might just know him after all.

"Okay. I'm going to go see Cooper now." Blaine nodded, chucking his gloves away and beginning to unwrap his knuckles. "Thanks, Puck."

"Don't mention it, Blaine."

* * *

It was angry, it was messy, it was emotional, and Blaine knew that the brotherly duet of _Somebody That I Used to Know_ was probably the best he and Cooper had ever sung together. As they wrapped up, he smiled tensely at his big brother, lips collapsing slightly at the edges as he realised that this was what they had now; angry songs and harsh words.

Somehow, though, they talked, without backing music, without choreographed routines, and it all started to work itself out. After they'd hugged it out and agreed to try being friends as well as brothers, the pair came to sit on the edge of the stage, finally talking about what was happening in their lives.

Cooper bumped their shoulders together, grinning at Blaine knowingly. "So… Noah Puckerman."

"Noah Puckerman." Blaine repeated, a small smile playing at his lips. "How did you know?"

"Call it brotherly intuition. I knew the second I saw the two of you." Cooper smirked, staring out at the empty chairs filling the auditorium. "You make quite the pair."

"He's not interested."

"Have hope, little brother." Cooper clapped a strong hand on Blaine's shoulder, using it as leverage to bring himself to stand. He reached down, offering a hand and dragging Blaine up to standing. "Have hope."


	7. Going for dinner with somebody else

_FYI, I don't think you can 'catch' the gay, it's just the kind of stupid thing I can imagine Puck saying. Okay? Okay!_

* * *

_**Going for dinner with somebody else.**_

* * *

When Santana asked about the whole affair three days later, both Puck and Blaine had sworn blind it wasn't a date.

That said, their meal at Breadstix had felt very much like one. It was meant to be a nice meal for eight – Santana, Brittany, Mike, Artie and Tina were all coming to mark Puck's Birthday.

But then Santana and Brittany had dropped out, and Mike, Tina and Artie had flaked almost immediately after. Suspicious, but Blaine would let it slide. It didn't matter too much – there was still going to be a house party the next weekend, and Blaine knew the football boys were doing something special for him too, so Puck's Birthday wouldn't go uncelebrated – but Puck had looked like the world's scariest sad puppy when Blaine had told him they weren't going to Breadstix, so Blaine took pity and dragged Puck there anyway.

Between the two of them, they'd taken great pleasure in flirting their way to a free basket of onion rings. Conversation was flowing easily, and everything was going swimmingly right until halfway through the main course.

Blaine spotted the group the second they walked through the door. Chris Davies, Michael Wallis and Fred Truman; three of the most vicious and malicious bullies Hayes High had to offer, and the prime reason he'd transferred to Dalton. The three were with some girls, and Blaine hoped that would prevent anything from happening; nonetheless, he lowered his head slightly, shifting so that he was partially obscured by Puck's back. It was too late, though, Chris immediately nudging his friends and approaching. His hand, thick, with unclean nails and rough, calloused fingertips, clamped down on Blaine's shoulder in a faux friendly manner, and he squeezed far too hard.

"Hey Blaine." His voice was light, smile insincere. "How you doing, buddy? Long time no see."

"Chris, Michael, Fred." Blaine paused, lowering his cutlery and looking up at the newcomer. "It's been a while."

"Some things never change though, huh, Blanderson? Still playing for the wrong team, all these years later." His tone was still so casual, none of the other diners batted an eyelid, and Blaine's insides clenched nervously. "Where did you pick this one up, the trailer park?"

"Please leave." Blaine stated politely. Puck was frowning, brow low as he shifted his gaze between Chris and Blaine, muscles tense.

"I think you should be the one leaving, you greasy little rat." Chris switched to a hiss, voice low and grating, and Puck tensed. "We don't want any of your kind poisoning our Breadstix." Puck stood, sliding between Blaine and Chris so that he was practically nose-to-nose with the intruder. Puck rolled his shoulders back, stretching to full height, and he matched the intruder in both height and width. Chris stepped back slightly, removing his hand from Blaine's shoulder, and gave Puck a once over, sizing him up aggressively.

"Care to repeat that, asshole?" Puck rumbled. Chris glared over Puck's shoulder at Blaine, practically ignoring the man before him.

"I said, we don't want any _fags_ in our Breadstix." The word was spat at Blaine with malice, and he winced slightly, moving to wince fully as he watched the angry, contorted face of the uninvited guest meet cold, hard fist.

Blaine didn't even have time to blink between Puck throwing the first punch and the chaos that descended around them. Chris was on the floor, clutching at his nose, and it was probably for the best, because Puck was only just managing to hold his own against the two goons standing. As Chris fought to stand upright again, Blaine squeezed out of the booth, clocking Michael with a swift uppercut to the face as soon as he was free. Chris joined in against Puck once more, but his moves were laboured, messy, and between the two of them, Blaine and Puck managed to avoid getting any serious hits.

It took far too long, in Blaine's opinion, but eventually the manager ran out, accompanied by two burly men, who managed to break up the fight. Chris, Michael and Fred snarled at the pair, but backed off almost immediately, grabbing their girls and heading straight for the car park. Blaine smiled, only frowning when he realised the manager was yelling at Puck.

"Witness reports say you threw the first punch." The burly men flanked the small manager, arms crossed at her waist angrily. "You're banned from this Breadstix for causing a disturbance." She stated, and Puck rolled his eyes. "Now leave, before I call the police!"

"No, this isn't fair, he was just reacting to their slurs!" Blaine pushed his way towards the quartet, trying to argue his point. "Call the police, tell them we want to report homophobic abuse!"

"Dude, shut the fuck up. I have a record." Puck hissed, shaking his head at the manager and pulling Blaine aside. "My word means shit to the Police, it would be your word against three, and your word sides with a Juvenile Delinquent. We need to leave." Puck grabbed Blaine by the scruff of his neck, steering him out of the restaurant and into the truck rapidly.

Puck reversed the truck out of the car park, skidding in and out of the three-point turn aggressively. He wasn't that mad, though, Blaine reasoned, because when he got to the Dairy Queen, he skidded through the Drive-Through and ordered two big Blizzards, and even Puck couldn't manage two of those.

Puck kept driving, remaining silent, and Blaine frowned as he hit the highway, heading in the opposite direction of either of their houses. It was gone 8pm, getting dark, and Blaine knew he was meant to be meeting up with Brittany and Mike at 9. Nonetheless, he stayed silent, reading the road-signs diligently for some indication as to where they were going.

When they finally pulled up beside a lake 5 minutes later, Blaine was surprised. He followed Puck's lead and slid out of the truck, eyes spotting Puck's name carved into one of the trees nearby. He turned to face the truck again, brows raised as he spotted Puck on the roof with the Blizzards, legs dangling over the windscreen as he reclined on his elbows. He rolled over, offering Blaine a hand up, and Blaine took it, climbing onto the roof using the window as a makeshift step.

"So, is this where you take your conquests?" Blaine asked lightly, taking one of the Blizzards and tucking in.

"No. I come here alone when I want to think." Puck replied, lying on his back and haphazardly spooning the ice cream into his mouth.

"Then why am I here?"

"Because I drove you here." Puck replied curtly, virtually chugging his ice cream before chucking the container aside. "Jesus, Anderson, for someone so smart you've got a shit memory." Puck commented, leaning back on the roof of his truck once more and closing his eyes. Blaine, however, remained sat upright, unable to keep quiet when so much was happening.

"I'm sorry you got banned from Breadstix." He eventually blurted out.

Puck opened his eyes, an annoyed glare gracing his features. "Dude." He rolled his eyes, propping himself up and looking at Blaine. "It doesn't matter anyway, there's another one ten minutes away." He continued, before lying back down and closing his eyes once more.

Blaine sighed, trying again. "I'm sorry you got banned from your local Breadstix because you were called a fag for being there with me."

"_Blaine_." Puck hissed, eyes popping open once more to glare at his companion. "You weren't the problem, the fucktards throwing 'round slurs were." Puck retorted, giving Blaine a very light shove. "How did you know the fuckers?"

"We went to the same school, back in the day." Blaine laughed nervously at the memory, dragging a hand over his hair. "They beat the crap out of my friend and I after a Sadie Hawkins dance, so I transferred to Dalton, and the rest is history."

"Shit." Puck muttered, reaching across to grab Blaine's bicep and rub it somewhat reassuringly. "Should have punched them harder." He stated lightly. "Dude, we need to work out like a signal that you can throw at me when you hate someone. I could have got rid of them much sooner but you were being all polite and shit so I thought they might've been your friends, thought maybe homophobic banter was how the posh kids at Dalton talked."

"I haven't got any other enemies, not really." Blaine shrugged. They sat in silence for a few minutes more, but Blaine couldn't manage to keep the words from eventually spilling from his mouth. "I'm still sorry, Puck. We should have just got takeout or something, I shouldn't have tried to bring you to a restaurant. Even if it hadn't have been them, someone might have caused an issue. With just the two of us there, it looked… homosexual." He treaded around the word nervously, everything that had happened bringing back all his old insecurities about what he was.

"Yeah, well, I've only got myself to blame for that." Puck shrugged, eyes closing once more. "I told Santana to make everyone else bail."

Blaine froze, staring down at Puck. "Why would you do that?"

"I didn't want them there."

"You're going to have to elaborate somewhat, Puckerman." Blaine ordered, frowning at Puck. Puck sighed, opening his eyes and looking at Blaine intently.

"I just wanted it to be me and you." He started, Blaine's raised eyebrows prompting him to continue. "So we could, y'know, get to know each other. Over dinner."

"You wanted to get to know me. Over dinner."

"Yeah, like Rachel and Finn do, or Santana and Brittany, or something." Puck muttered, sitting up and burying his face in his blizzard cup. "It was a stupid idea, I don't know why I tried it."

"Like a couple." Blaine stated, heart swelling when Puck nodded. The question hung on the tip of his tongue, and Blaine struggled to not trip over his words. "So, was this a date?"

"No." Puck answered, and Blaine's heart dropped for a second. "Another experiment." Puck affirmed, glancing at Blaine somewhat nervously. "When I take you on a date, Anderson, you won't need to ask."

"_When_?" Blaine smiled at him, and Puck looked up, the old Puckerman confidence sweeping back over him.

"Yeah, when." Puck leaned in, breath ghosting across Blaine's lips. He held himself there for a moment, leaning back slightly when Blaine tried to close the gap with a smirk. "I know you're desperate for some Puck-Pie, Anderson, but you'll have to buy me a drink first."

"So you're…gay?"

"Probably bisexual." Puck amended with a shrug. "Unfussy, let's say. Any hole's a goal."

"Puck, that's disgusting." Blaine wrinkled his nose, but smiling nonetheless.

"Welcome to my world, sweet cheeks."

"As charming as this conversation is, I'm meant to be meeting up with Mike and Brittany in 40 minutes at my house, we're practicing a number for the vintage part of Nationals." Blaine smiled. "We're doing disco."

"Dude, disco sucks." Puck replied, rolling his eyes. "Tell Brittany to bring Santana, me and my girl can bitch together." Puck began sliding towards the edge of the car, but Blaine's hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping him.

"Can I ask…" Blaine started, smiling at Puck. "What brought this about?"

"There's this guy I know." Puck stated, smirking. "I don't know, maybe you've met him too. He is very good at pointing, and this one day, he pointed at me and yelled _you need to stop dancing around my brother and go out with him because he's crazy about you_, and I thought, well, I'll be damned, I'm kinda crazy about him too."

"But Scandals…"

"I meant every word of what I said that night, Anderson. I'm not turning you into a whore like me." Puck affirmed, climbing off the roof of the car and sliding into the driving seat. "I'll date the shit out of you first."

"Really?" Blaine asked, sliding into the passenger seat with equal ease.

"Why do you think I was questioning my sexuality in the first place, Anderson?" Puck quirked an eyebrow, revving the engine. "There's only so many times a straight dude can share a bed with a gay as hot as you before you catch the gay."

"You can't catch homosexuality, Puck."

"Sure you can't." Puck winked, fiddling with the radio. "Hey, I'm pretty sure I still have a _disco sucks_ shirt somewhere from the last time Mr Schue tried to force disco on us, I'll have to dig that out."

"Hey, I love Disco." Blaine tried to sound affronted, but the mirth in his voice hid everything, and Puck reached across, draping an arm across Blaine's shoulder.

"And that's why you need me." Puck replied, squeezing Blaine's shoulder loosely. "It's not too late to fix you, Anderson, I promise."

* * *

_As a pairing, I feel Plaine are very much lacking in fics. This upsets me, as they are clearly awesome. I'm working on another oneshot (a few years after moving to Cali, Puck bumps into Cooper, and Cooper proceeds to harass Puck constantly in an attempt set him up with Blaine) but would L-O-V-E some requests thrown my way!_


	8. Going on a date with somebody else

_**Going for a date with someone new.**_

* * *

Rebelling against parental authority was a terrible side effect of prolonged contact with Noah Puckerman. Really, Blaine was proud that it took two months of being the boy's best friend before his first major rebellion.

His parents weren't exactly concerned; they didn't even notice him rebel. It wasn't that Quentin and Amanda Anderson weren't good _people_. They were tremendously charitable to local organisations, impeccable golfers and savvy business people. That said, they had never really been good _parents_. They loved their kids, of course, but in a detached manner that made every parent-child discussion feel like a business meeting. Blaine knew that, to an extent, he and Cooper were there to tick boxes, and that having kids was a necessity in the life Quentin and Amanda wanted people to see. It still hurt sometimes, but Cooper helped, and Blaine only had to look at Puck to see he could have had it far worse.

Blaine's parents had eventually accepted their younger son's sexuality, and had even suggested something akin to a business merger when Blaine had told them he and Kurt had broken up. Comfort and emotional discussions were not their forte, but they provided a comfortable lifestyle, and stayed out of the way, so telling them he'd fixed things with Kurt seemed like the best option when his mother had awkwardly questioned how he was a week later. Besides, they disapproved of Puck on sight, due to his disjunction with the 'Anderson Aesthetic', and so Kurt became a ready-made excuse.

It was easy for Blaine to push down the slight tingle of guilt that hit as he calmly told them he was staying over at Kurt's that night, safe in the knowledge that they were too busy with the work they'd brought home to check up on his location. In reality, Puck had managed to bag two tickets to see Train in Dayton. They'd agreed to meet around the corner, out of sight of the house, so Blaine walked down the drive and round the corner, heart dropping as he spotted Puck straddling his bike, spare helmet stashed under his arm. Dressed in his leathers, Blaine was reminded of exactly _why _his parents disapproved of Puck; he oozed danger and sex. Shaking off the butterflies in his stomach, Blaine returned to glaring at Puck and the motorbike.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me." Puck shrugged, smirking as he tossed Blaine the extra helmet. "_Really?_ The gig is over an hour away. You expect me to get on that _death trap_ for seventy miles?"

"Yup." Puck smirked, throwing his leg over the bike and stalking towards Blaine when he made no move to approach. Puck wrestled the helmet from Blaine's hands, pushing it onto Blaine's head and tucking the curls in around the edges. "Come on, Curly, or we'll be late." Puck stated, returning to the bike and straddling it once more, patting the seat behind him.

"Can't we take my car?" Blaine asked defeatedly, already moving towards the bike. "Or the bus. Or, hey, I've heard walking's fun!" Puck just sent a smouldering glare over his shoulder, which morphed into his trademark smirk as Blaine climbed on. Blaine examined the wide back before him, before resting his hands tentatively on Puck's waist. "This doesn't feel safe."

"Well, it's not when you're sat like that, Anderson." Puck scoffed, grabbing Blaine's wrists and tugging him in until Blain's chest was pushed up against his back, placing Blaine's hands on his abs. "Remember; tap my leg and we'll stop." Puck stated, before pushing down Blaine's visor and then his own.

Puck was fast, but safe, and slowly Blaine began to relax into the ride. His grip turned from terrified to secure, and (heaven have mercy) he began to enjoy the feeling of Puck in front of him. His muscles were thick and strong, easy to hold onto. In all, Blaine was almost disappointed when they pulled to a halt an hour later. Puck locked down the bike as Blaine took a look at their surroundings. The venue was dingy, but packed. Puck ushered Blaine towards the door, handing him a ticket as they went.

They got in with time to spare, finding a spot in the shadows at the back. Blaine watched the support act with a half interested eye as Puck grabbed them some drinks, coming back minutes later with two pints of beer. Blaine took one, eyeing Puck's own drink with distaste. He leant in, mouth practically against Puck's ear to be heard above the music. "Should you be drinking?"

"I'll only have the one." Puck replied, lips literally pressed against Blaine's ear, throwing an arm across Blaine's shoulder and giving him a slight shake. "I'll get you home in one piece, Anderson, don't you worry your curly little head about it." Blaine smiled apprehensively, noting that Puck's arm stayed resting across his shoulders.

The support act came to an end, and Blaine clapped as best he could with drink in hand. Puck, however, stayed motionless, arm still slung across Blaine's shoulders. The pair talked amicably as the stage was prepped, Puck finishing his drink and discarding the plastic cup on the floor.

Seconds before Train came on, Blaine felt a warm nose nuzzle his cheek, and as he turned to enquire _what on earth_ his lips were captured in a kiss that was simultaneously intimate and routine; Puck's hand cupped his face, yet the kiss was short, more of a loving peck than anything, and Blaine gaped like a fish as Puck pulled away, turning to watch the band instead. It was done with such ease that it was as if it had never happened; there was a familiarity present that surely couldn't come in a couple's first kiss.

Blaine gaped for a minute longer, only starting when he heard the first few guitar chords echo out. It seemed to snap him out of his reverie, and he gave Puck a light shove, pushing him away with a grip that pulled Puck back in at the last minute. Puck barely reacted, continuing to watch the band, though a light smirk began to grace his features, and his arm wrapped more tightly around Blaine.

It was suddenly very clear that Puck was coming good on his promise of a date. Blaine struggled to pay attention through the set, too focussed on the boy next to him who was scarily nonplus about the entire affair. The pair stayed in the shadows, away from prying eyes, but Puck didn't try to kiss him again, seemingly content with his position wrapped around the smaller boy.

Blaine couldn't believe he hadn't guessed that this would be the much-awaited date. It had been two weeks since their disastrous dinner at Breadstix, and they'd done plenty of things as a duo since without it being 'dating'. They'd made it through Puck's birthday party with no more than some light flirting, and not even mentioned the promised date. Puck had bought the tickets months ago, Blaine was almost sure Puck didn't have this in mind when he bought them, or did he? As Santana had once told him, Puck's motives for anything were never certain.

The band went off to a roar of cheers and calls for an encore, but Blaine had no interest in staying for the last few songs. He turned to Puck, nodding at the door. Puck nodded, letting his hand trace every inch of skin between shoulder and wrist as he reached down to take Blaine's hand, leading him out of the club.

"So." Blaine started, lacing his fingers through Puck's. "This is a date."

"Yup." Puck nodded, smirking down at Blaine. "How am I doing?"

"Pretty well." Blaine replied. The pair walked over to the bike, enjoying the privacy of the streets before the crowds filtered out. "Not going to lie, though, I feel cheated out of a first kiss." Blaine joked, smirking when Puck raised an eyebrow.

"You got a first kiss."

"No, I got a thirty-first kiss, it just happened to precede the thirty that should have happened before." Blaine joked, leaning against the bike. The alley was deserted, and with a burst of confidence, Blaine reached forward, stroking the lapel of Puck's jacket. "I've never been kissed like that before. It felt…familiar. Good. None of the awkwardness that should come with a first kiss. But…"

"You want a first kiss?" Puck came closer, crowding around Blaine and pinning him against the bike. Blaine's breath hitched as Puck's lips ghosted over his. Blaine traced Puck's jaw with his fingertips, smirking as he found a ticklish spot.

"You're welcome to have another go." Blaine muttered. Puck smirked, wrapping a firm hand around Blaine's thigh and hauling him up away from the bike, closing the gap between their lips as he carded a hand through Blaine's curly hair. Puck supported both their weight as Blaine gasped into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Puck's shoulders and his leg around Puck's waist, leaving the other dangling while Puck held him off the ground.

There was nothing familiar about this kiss. It was electric, passionate and so very different for Blaine that he couldn't help but get lost in Puck's lips. If he was standing, Blaine was pretty sure he'd be swooning. Puck drew him impossibly close, running his tongue along Blaine's lips and taking advantage of the groan that emerged, slipping his tongue into Blaine's mouth and deepening the kiss.

Blaine rode the kiss, not fighting for dominance over his more experienced partner, but trying to remain involved, and, if the noises Puck was making were any indication, he was doing OK. Blaine let his hands wander slightly, drawing paths across Puck's torso and back, and he hissed when Puck's hand went from thigh to ass, kneading the flesh he found there. Puck pulled out of the kiss slightly, smirking to himself as he retained contact but slowed the pace, and Blaine could have sworn his heart skipped a beat.

They stayed like that for a moment, until Puck walked the pair backwards, placing Blaine on the seat of the bike. Puck smirked into the kiss, before finally pulling away slightly, one hand still wound in Blaine's hair. "First kiss?"

Blaine paused for a minute, catching his breath. Good God, Puck was good at kissing. "Fifth." Blaine affirmed, leaning in for another quick peck. "The best type of kiss. When you've had enough practice with the person for the kissing to be good."

"Babe, I don't _do_ bad kisses." Puck smirked. He held the bike steady as Blaine mounted it fully. Puck followed quickly after, pulling Blaine around him once more and smirking as he felt the evidence of Blaine's enjoyment pressing into his lower back. He ground back slightly, smirking even more as he heard the involuntary groan that escaped Blaine's throat. Puck turned, laughing at Blaine's scowl as he pushed down Blaine's visor, obscuring the embarrassed face before knocking down his own and kicking off.

Blaine couldn't even bring himself to feel the slightest bit scared as he held onto Puck for the journey back. The night air was crisp, the body before him hard and strong, and a potent mixture of beer and Puck gave him a nice buzz. He frowned when Puck turned off the highway one junction early, but didn't question it, curious to see where Puck was taking him.

When they pulled up aside the Great Lake, in the spot Puck had taken him a few weeks earlier, Blaine was surprised. Puck ushered him off the bike, and Blaine stood staring as Puck dug into his storage compartment, pulling out something unseen.

"Tell anyone about this and they'll never find your body." Puck threatened half-heartedly, throwing down a picnic rug and a few bagfuls of M&Ms. The pair lay on the mat, chatting interspersed with miniature make-out sessions that had Blaine hot under the collar. It was during one of these sessions that Puck pulled away, rolling off Blaine onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow.

"So you know… I'm totally willing to put out." Puck grinned, panting slightly.

"Puck!"

"What, you told me you didn't want to be treated like a virgin, so I'm not, and we've been on a date now." Puck retorted half-jokingly, playing with Blaine's hair. "You're hot, and I'm hot, and neither of us have been getting any for a while…"

"And I'm not doing it for the first time with someone on a picnic mat, Puck." Blaine rolled his eyes, moving to sit up, but Puck placed a hand on his shoulder, stilling him.

"Blaine... Do you want it to be special?" Puck cooed, a smile spreading across his face as Blaine blushed. "Fuck, you do!"

"You'd be the second guy I've ever slept with, and I think I'd be the first guy you will have ever slept with, so yeah, I'd like special." Blaine huffed, determinedly avoiding Puck's eyes. "I think you kind of deserve a special gay first time, too, if the rumours at McKinley about your first time are anything to go by..."

"I didn't lose my V-card on the school roof with Mrs K, if that's the rumour you're referring to." Puck smirked, fingers tracing Blaine's features. "It was the cougar at 146." Puck smiled nostalgically, running his hand down to rest on Blaine's stomach. "Her husband came home half-way through, one of the best and worst days of my life." He revealed, rubbing slow circles with his palm. "You know, no one's ever asked _me_ for special before." Puck muttered, a small smile on his face. "Ok. Special, I can do that."

"It's Prom in three weeks…" Blaine suggested, examining Puck's face. "Is that too far away?"

"Dude, I was expecting you to lock up my balls for like 6 months, and I would have waited for you with a smile. I can totally wait 3 weeks." Puck smirked, dragging the tips of his fingers across Blaine's covered abs. "Not entirely sure how I'm going to keep _you_ interested for three weeks without the sex part, though…"

"I'm sure you'll manage." Blaine replied, voice tight from Puck's ministrations. He reached for Puck's hand, encasing it in two of his own, and kissing a knuckle lightly. "We kind of skipped a stage." Blaine declared, smiling at Puck. "Puck, would you like to be my prom date?"

"Yeah. I'd like that." Puck smirked. He rolled over, straddling Blaine and in the same move removing his wife beater, leaving his torso bare to the cool night air. "I'll even let you get to second base with me, to seal the deal."

Blaine knew he was teasing, but months without sex had apparently reduced him to a 13 year old again, and his mouth watered at the sight of Puck's torso. He glanced up to Puck's face, which was so smug it was unreal, and rolled his eyes, beginning to unbutton his own shirt. "Only fair I return the favour, I suppose..."

Puck sat back on his haunches, watching Blaine shrug out of the shirt with a slightly predatory grin. The moment the shirt was off, he rolled down, resting his forearms either side of Blaine's head and leaving his mouth inches above Blaine's, tempting, teasing. "Oh, the fun I am going to have with you, Blaine Anderson."

* * *

_So. I have nothing written for the next chapter. How 'bout that? I'll still try and get it out in the next 3 days, but I am really sorry if it's late! Also, keep a look out for a few cheeky one-shots - I've got 3 on the go at the moment, and one of them will contain Plaine, but be posted under Puck and Cooper as Blaine is hardly in it. I'm a little worried that there might be a single Cooper/Puck fan (Cuck? Cock? **Pooper**? HAH) that will get excited about there being a Cooper/Puck story, only to have their hopes cruelly dashed, but they'll just have to man up!_


	9. Learning to care about someone else

**Apologies for the delay. I had to make an unexpected trip to see my parents for 3 weeks, and they're currently living in a country where homosexuality is illegal and Internet use is heavily monitored. I draw enough attention to myself without getting caught writing gay ff, so I had to temporarily stop updating. Without going too off-track, how mad is it that, in this day and age, homosexuality is still illegal in an outrageous percentage of the world? **

* * *

_**Step Nine - Learning to care about someone else's life.**_

* * *

It less than 24 hours for Blaine to realise that he was going to have as much trouble at adhering to the 3 week _no-sex_ rule as he thought Puck would.

Oddly enough, Puck had taken to the rule like a duck to water, banning anything more than shirtless make-out sessions until Prom rolled around. Luckily for Blaine, these tended to occur multiple times on a daily basis.

It was an unwritten rule that they were keeping their relationship secret for the time being. Blaine didn't mind too much – if he'd asked, he was pretty sure Puck would have come out – and they spent enough time together at school that he never felt that unwanted. It would have been nice if they could be a bit more affectionate, but Blaine knew that would come in time.

Besides, what they lacked in public intimacy was more than compensated by the time they spent together outside of school.

Still, being subtle had its downsides. They didn't have many classes together, but keeping their relationship secret from the rest of the Glee club meant that looking at Puck was practically forbidden. It didn't help that Santana kept giving the Blaine these looks, as if she knew every single dirty thought going through his mind.

So, in general, Blaine tried to keep his distance. All that went out the window, however, when Finn lectured them all in the locker room about Puck. At the start of Finn's lecture on how Puck had dropped _completely off the grid_, Blaine had been a little smug, as Puck was _most definitely_ not ignoring him (if that morning's session in Puck's truck had been anything to go by), but when he said that he'd overheard Puck telling Sugar that he might not be graduating that year, Blaine finally started listening. When Finn had called Puck out on it, he'd claimed that it was only to stop Sugar melting all over him about him graduating and 'leaving' her, but his furious rendition of _School's Out_ was still fresh in everyone's minds.

Blaine wasn't stupid, he knew that Puck was struggling slightly academically, but talking about it would have involved talking about the fact that Puck was graduating in 6 short weeks, and the last thing Blaine wanted was to make Puck angry during the time they had left by bringing up his failings. He helped Puck study for the classes they shared – Puck's maths scores had hit a high after combining studying with macking – but stayed out of everything else.

And now he felt a tool for doing so.

"We need to find a way to make him pass that test." Blaine stated to the boys, who sat around the locker room pensively.

"In fourth grade, Puck swore he passed a test on Huckleberry Finn without reading the book by making out with one of the smart girls. Said it was osmosis or something. Maybe we could try that again?" Finn suggested sombrely, and Blaine balked as all of the guys except he and Artie nodded encouragingly.

"Yeah, a kiss for luck, kind of thing." Sam suggested, and Blaine exhaled sharply. "Santana's not on the market anymore, but Puck's a good looking guy, I'm sure we can find a girl to get him back into shape."

"It's worth a shot." Mike nodded. "What about one of the Cheerios?"

"No, he's slept with all of them already." Finn countered, and the tense feeling in Blaine's stomach expanded, practically engulfing him. "We need to think further afield."

"No, we need a proper plan." Sometimes, Blaine was so glad for Artie's presence. "A kiss might give him courage, but he still needs to know the capital of France to stand a chance at passing this test."

"Okay, a plan. I can do that." Finn nodded briskly, standing up with intent. "Reconvene in the choir room after Glee."

* * *

Ever since the meeting in the locker room, Blaine had been hung up on all of the girls Puck had dated in the school. Practically every graduating female had history with the mohawked teen, so walking down the corridor was like walking through a catalogue of Puck's exes.

He hadn't seen Puck all day, and assumed the older teen was bunking (not the best idea when you're flunking) so by the time Glee rolled around, his fears had snowballed into a mountain of self-doubt.

Puck wasn't in Glee club, unsurprisingly, so Blaine sat between Mike and Brittany, trying to ignore how Santana sat beside her, studying Blaine intently. Blaine tried to keep his expression neutral, but he knew that Santana could read people far too easily. The session flew by, and soon enough the glee boys (sans Kurt, thank _God)_ were left alone in the choir room.

Finn started explaining his crackpot plan (no matter what Finn said, the doodle stickman Blaine was hiding behind was definitely a bear) and Blaine really struggled to keep a straight face, because really? Pushing Artie in a pool was how Finn wanted to help Puck learn?

But then Puck had come in, looking all lost, and it had taken all of Blaine's efforts not to stride over and kiss that broken puppy look off his face. However, then Puck muttered, "I just saw my dad", and Blaine stopped wanting to kiss him, just wanted to hold him for a really long time.

But Blaine didn't, not in front of all of these people, just let Finn be a good best friend and do the comforting. As loathe as he was to say it, Finn's fist-bump was just the kind of subtle comfort Puck needed in public. They began trying to teach him immediately, everyone apart from Finn vowing to stay in the choir-room until morning to help him study.

Blaine smiled at Finn as he left to watch Kurt and Rachel audition, and felt a slight pull at his heart at the memory of Kurt. He brushed it off quickly, though, fully devoting himself to the tough task of teaching Puck.

Blaine considered trying to sneak Puck away and teach him alone, with his oh-so-successful _kiss the knowledge into Puck_ _in a manner that's __not at all osmotic_technique, but he didn't know the first thing about European geography, and breaking the kiss to look at the text book would be counterproductive.

When they sang the _My Fair Lady _song, it buoyed everyone's spirits slightly, but Blaine wasn't an idiot, and knew that it wouldn't really help that much (after all, hurricanes hardly happened _anywhere_ in England; Hull, Hartlepool and Humberside were all just as bereft of hurricanes as Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire), no matter how much Finn pretended that this was a major breakthrough.

Thanks to Artie, though, Puck had mastered four of the twelve topics, and since the test would only comprise of about a quarter of the topics that Puck should have learned that year, there was about a 27% shot that two of the topics would come up, and Puck would get enough to pass. Of course, that also meant that there was a 25% chance that Puck would get 0%, but Blaine tried not to think about that. At least he could be sure that the probability drills he'd run with Puck had been drilled into _his_ mind.

Finally, morning came, as did Puck's hour of reckoning. Everyone filtered out of the choir room slowly, but Blaine grabbed Puck's arm, holding him there until the last person slipped from the room. "Hey." Blaine smiled, rubbing Puck's biceps slowly.

"I'm going to be late for the exam." Puck smirked, clutching his pens.

"This will only take a moment. I figured you deserved a kiss." Blaine paused, wetting his lips anxiously. "For good luck."

Puck smiled at that, and beckoned Blaine forward, letting Blaine give him a slow peck. Puck winked obscenely, pulling out of the loose embrace and saluting Blaine as he left. "Gotta ace that test now."

"Break a leg!" Blaine shouted after him, smiling to himself.

* * *

Blaine waited with bated breath for the European Geography exam to finish, shoulder to shoulder with Finn and Sam. All the Glee boys were there, attempting to catch a glimpse of how Puck was doing. When he finally emerged, his face was unreadable, and Blaine found himself almost immediately blurting out, "Did you pass?".

Puck said he had, but he wasn't meeting Blaine's eyes, flickering around the group instead.

"Instead of one dad, I got a whole gang of them." Puck smiled at the group, looking at everyone in turn. "You guys showed me what it means to be a man." His eyes finally landed on Blaine, and Blaine smiled encouragingly. "Even you, Blaine." Puck added, a small smile curling his lips. At a glance, it came out as an insult, a statement that Blaine was somehow less manly than the others glee boys. Yet somehow Blaine heard it differently, whether Puck meant it as such or not. He had singled him out. In their group, the only name he'd mentioned was Blaine. _Even you, Blaine. Especially you, Blaine. _

"Thanks?" Blaine replied, smile ingrained on his face regardless of his mock-questioning tone. The group separated, leaving Blaine and Puck facing one another in the corridor. Blaine smiled encouragingly, and Puck balked, grabbing Blaine's arm and swinging him into the now-deserted Geography room. The door slammed shut and Puck was immediately there, clinging to Blaine almost desperately, pressing Blaine up and into the door. Puck pressed closer, _closer_, and Blaine groaned, followed by a disapproving hiss as Puck pulled away slightly.

"We don't have to do anything else, just kiss me, okay?" Puck mumbled into his lips, and Blaine deepened the kiss again, threading his finger's through Puck's longer-than-usual mohawk. The kiss was different, almost out of control, with Puck determined to ensure there was as little distance between them as possible.

Blaine finally decided enough was enough, and broke the kiss, leaning back only slightly and leaving his forehead pressed against Puck. "Seriously, what's going on?" Blaine questioned, rubbing his hands along Puck's sides. "Is this about the exam? I thought you said it went well?"

Puck shrugged. "Just… still freaked out about seeing my old man." He muttered, fisting his hands around Blaine's shirt. "I've got some pools to finish still." The subject change was lightning fast, but Blaine let it slide, leaning into Puck's brief kiss with a smile. "I'll come see you later?"

"Sounds like a plan." Blaine nodded, smile widening as Puck nuzzled his temple. "Regardless of how you do in this test, Puck, you're not your Dad. You know that, right?" Puck hummed noncommittally, leaning out of the embrace. He stepped out of the classroom first, scanning the empty corridor before Blaine emerged.

"Hey guys." They span, turning to face Santana with a jump. She looked unsurprised to see the pair together, picking at her nails unamusedly. "Puck, do you mind if I borrow Blaine for a few hours? Brittany roped me into helping with Prom set-up, I need his tiny hobbit fingers to tie tiny knots in ribbon for me."

"You'll have to ask Blaine." Puck replied, walking up to Santana and wrapping a single arm around her, placing a chaste kiss onto her hair. "I've got work, see you later."

Santana followed him with her eyes as he left, before spinning to glare at Blaine. "What's wrong with him?"

"Family stuff." Blaine stated, watching Puck leave with a frown. "Come on, then, let's go and tie some tiny knots…"

* * *

They didn't go to Santana's house to tie ribbons. They ended up in the nearest Ben and Jerry's, sat at a booth with a full bowl of ice cream before each of them. Blaine ate his slowly, pensively, waiting for Santana to dramatically reveal her real reason for bringing him here, as she clearly intended to do.

"So, how often are you and Puck fucking?" That, he hadn't expected. Blaine choked on his ice cream, very glad for the small mouthfuls, and stared at Santana with wide eyes.

"What?" He coughed out. "He told you?"

"Nope." She replied, and Blaine's face dropped. "But you just did." Her smirk was smug, a single brow raised as she played with her chocolate ice cream.

"_Please_ don't tell anyone, Santana." Blaine pleaded, reaching across to take Santana's hand. "Puck's not out yet, he needs to come out in his own time, don't push this –"

"Relax, pip-squeak, I'm not going to go and out Puck." Santana rolled her eyes, shaking his hand away. "Answer the question; how often are you guys fucking?" She leant forward, eyes sparkling. "Can I watch?"

"_Santana_!" Blaine exclaimed. He could feel his cheeks reddening, and dipped his head, looking away. "We're not – we haven't –"

"Oh." Santana interrupted, her eyebrows rising almost comically. "_Oh._" She paused, breaking eye contact and swirling her ice cream around the small bowl. "Wow. I figured, since you two have been dancing around each other for months, you'd be straight through to riding that bad boy. How long have you two been seeing each other?"

"About two weeks?" "Since he took me to that Train concert."

"He took you to see Train?" Santana scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That boy is whipped. Next thing you know, you'll have him singing Taylor Swift and wearing a dress."

"Hey, I like Train."

"Exactly." She smirked. "So, are you going to tell me why you were all pouty during Glee, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?" Santana slunk around the booth, serpentine in her movements as she let her arm drape behind Blaine. "I'm going to go ahead and assume it has something to do with big, buff and mohawky, because the only reason anyone ever goes_ that_ pouty is for matters of love."

"It's going to sound silly."

"I'm dating Brittany." Santana countered. "I will have heard worse."

"Puck and I, we're great." Blaine started, smiling at the thought of Puck. "Better than great, fantastic." He amended nervously, dragging a hand over his gelled hair. "I don't know, though, he's been so amazing, but I'm just… I'm worried that maybe Puck's not into me. That I'm not enough."

Santana paused, scanning Blaine's face for an extraordinary amount of time. "Has Puck been aggressive or cold?"

"No." Blaine frowned, glancing at Santana's blank face curiously.

"Has he hurt you, or cheated on you, or been too forward?"

"No!"

"He's given you plenty of affection? Taken you on dates, given you lots of hugs and kisses?"

"Yes?"

"Has he been looking at other men or women in a way that'd make you think he wasn't 100% into you?"

"I don't think so?"

"Oh honey…" Santana cooed, beckoning Blaine in for a hug. Blaine moved forwards, but before he could wrap his arms around her, Santana's left hand came up like a whip, clipping him round the ears.

"Ow!" Blaine exclaimed, glaring at Santana. "What was that for?"

"Now you better listen, and listen well, chico." Santana practically hissed, leaning into Blaine's space. "I like you, but Puck is my boy, and he is making one damned-ass effort to keep you happy. Why on _earth _did you get it into your _tiny head_ that he wasn't head over heels with you?"

"I know about how many girls he was with, you know, before. What if I'm not enough, San?" She clipped him around the back of the head once more, and he barely winced this time. "Please stop doing that, you've got a hand like a whip."

"Then stop saying stupid things." Santana countered, still glaring at Blaine. "Lauren aside – and she was one hell of an exception – I've never seen Puck put any real effort into a relationship before. He's clearly mad for whatever it is that you're offering. Trust me when I say he's not just in it for the sex – if he wanted sex tonight, he could easily go and get some, yet he's not slept with a single person_ since you broke up with Kurt_ so that he might stand a shot with you. He's not even _looked _at a single other soul since that night at _Scandals_, so get over your little confidence crisis and eat your ice cream." Blaine stayed quiet, rubbing the back of his head as he grabbed his spoon and shoved almost a quarter of his ice cream into his mouth. He gave Santana a _happy now?_ smile and she smirked back, giving him a patronising pat on the head.

After swallowing the ice cream (and fighting to hide the brain freeze that accompanied such a large mouthful), Blaine glanced at Santana once more. "You know, I've heard about some of the things you've done to Puck's girlfriends." Blaine stated, trying and failing at sounding casual. "You've never been nice to them, even after you started dating Brittany. Why are you so okay with me?"

"I like to be the number one lady in Puck's life." Santana shrugged, sliding away from Blaine to the other side of the booth once more. "As long as he's fucking around with you, I am, except for maybe Beth and Sarah, so thanks, short stack." She smirked. "That said, you hurt him and I hurt you." She said, a deadly serious glare on her face, before it fell away to leave a mischievous smirk in its wake. "Got to say, you've got a lot to look forward to. Puck's cock is a wondrous tool."

"Santana…" Blaine couldn't help it, he could feel a blush climbing up his cheeks, and no matter how he struggled, it wasn't going to go away. Santana was smirking to herself, and kept going.

"Seriously, he had me convinced _I _liked dick for _years_ with that penis. It's a really good size; you see it, and you think yeah, that's going to feel good, but it's not too big as to be uncomfortable."

"Can we please stop having this conversation?"

"And it's not like he's one of those guys who is so smug in their well-endowed ways as to be useless in the bedroom; he really, _really_ knows what he's doing with his instrument. Master pianist, if you will. And his mouth, god, his mouth, the things that man can do with his tongue are second only to Brittany." By this point Blaine had given up, resting his forehead on the table before him and huffing.

"I hate you."

"I know, sweetie." Santana reached forward, patting him on the back of the head lightly. "I know."

* * *

_Bugbear from this episode - Hertford and Hereford are cities, not counties. However, rewatching Choke reminded me that **Boy Next Door **is my favourite Kurt song, I think he did a fantastic job of it, so I didn't spend the whole episode solely grumbling!_


	10. Hurting from someone else's failures

_**I love the scene with Coach Beiste. Lovelovelove it. However, I have issues with how they got there; why was it that none of Puck's friends were there for the showdown with Rick? I know that, at my school, if ~20 people knew about a fight, it would take less than an hour for the whole school to find out about it, yet not a single person turned up to be in Puck's corner. For someone who seemed to have solidified some strong friendships in the previous few episodes, he was very alone when push came to shove. I like how they did the scene with Coach Beiste, but Puck's friends should have been there to help him first, so I've shaken things up a bit.**_

* * *

_**Hurting from someone else's failures**_

* * *

Blaine lay on his bed; guitar sprawled across his lap as he strummed lightly. As much as he _loved _hanging out with Puck and Santana and everyone else that had emerged from the woodwork after his break-up with Kurt, they were very time consuming people, and Blaine found himself alone with his guitar less and less. The funny thing was, though, somehow playing guitar had lost its appeal, without Santana singing along, or Mike dancing away, or Puck accompanying on whatever instrument he'd found that week.

Blaine played for a moment longer, mind unfocussed, until his phone started buzzing across the room, and he placed is guitar aside, crossing the room and checking the screen. He didn't recognise the number, and frowned. Blaine answered the call, echoing out his usual greeting with a hint of uncertainty. "Hey Blaine." The voice that answered back was undoubtedly Finn's, and Blaine remained confused. "How are you?"

"I'm okay…" Blaine trailed off. He didn't even know Finn had his number, and their contact post-Kurt had been minimal at best. "Finn, why are you ringing me?"

Finn sighed. "I got your number from Mike. I didn't want to call, but I didn't know what else to do. We finished football training an hour ago, but Puck's been running laps ever since, I can't get him to come inside…" Finn paused, and Blaine frowned at the phone. Puck was fit, sure, but he liked slacking, and would never voluntarily do something as repetitive as running laps. "Before training, man, he went crazy. Pulled a knife on one of the puck-heads. It was only a rubber prop, but if one of the teachers had seen… Mike, Sam and I managed to drag him off before things got really bad, but he's still really, really messed up. You two are, like, inseparable now, could you come down to McKinley and see if you can't talk some sense into him? It's getting dark."

Blaine gaped at the phone for another moment, before getting his wits about him and answering Finn. "Yeah, of course, I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm at home; it will take me a while to get there… Can you keep an eye on him? Text me if anything changes." Blaine hung up after Finn affirmed, and was on the highway before he even had time to think. He took a deep breath, taking his foot off the accelerator slightly – he'd be no use to anyone if he crashed.

Blaine had heard about Puck's moods – they were legend at McKinley, mainly due to the massive increase in Slushies and Dumpster dips whenever he was in one. However, Blaine had yet to witness one first hand, and if Puck had pulled a knife on someone, even a rubber one, it had to be bad. He tapped a beat onto the steering wheel, willing time to pass as he headed for McKinley. As he neared Lima, he noticed it was raining, and turned on his wipers, rolling his eyes as he realised that Puck was probably soaking wet.

Blaine parked up, throwing his hood up as he jogged to where Finn stood, waiting. Finn was drenched, and looked completely miserable. "Thanks for coming, man."

"No problem." Blaine replied, craning his head to try and catch a glimpse of Puck. He finally spotted him through the rain, almost at the other side of the large McKinley track. "So he's been out here running for two hours?"

"Can't doubt the man's endurance." Finn tried to joke, his laugh coming out as more of a choked cough. The pair of them stood in the rain, watching Puck circle round. "Could you go and talk to him?"

"I can try." Blaine shrugged, already moving towards the field. He started jogging towards his boyfriend, falling into pace beside him. They ran a lap together in silence, the air punctuated with Puck's heavy breathing. "So, any particular reason you're running loops like a hamster?" Puck didn't even glimpse at Blaine, didn't make a move to show he'd heard, just kept running. "Finn says you've been out here for a while, why don't you come to my car and warm up?"

"Go 'way."

"Not until you tell me what you're doing out here."

"I'm running laps, dumbass." Puck bit back, speeding up as Blaine dropped off the pace, slowing to a walk. He watched Puck sprint around the bend with a sigh, body sagging under the weight of his confusion. Blaine walked back to Finn, scruffing his hair nervously.

"Well, that didn't work." Blaine told Finn honestly. He took off his bowtie and overcoat, throwing them into the backseat of his car.

"At least he spoke to you. More than he's done for me in the last few hours." Finn shrugged, the slightest tinge of jealousy shading his voice. "What are you gonna do?" Finn asked, frowning as he watched Blaine remove his watch and belt.

"I'm going to do something stupid." Blaine muttered to himself, before turning to answer Finn's question. "I'm going to tackle him."

"Dude, Puck's like twice your weight." Finn blinked, frowning. "If he gets pissed off…"

"Here's hoping he doesn't get pissed off, then." Blaine stated, handing his jacket to Finn. "If I nod, you can leave, okay?"

"Dude…" Finn trailed off, looking at Blaine sceptically. "Okay, you know best. Be careful. Ring me if anything happens." Blaine would have laughed had the situation not been so serious, because _Good Lord _this was surreal. He watched Puck swerve around the bend, and began his run, knowing he'd have to time it perfectly to catch Puck.

Blaine may have been lighter than Puck, but he had momentum and the element of surprise on his side, and he barrelled into Puck with enough force to pull them both over, both of them landing on the soft grass beside the track. Blaine reacted quickly, rolling so that he was straddling Puck.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Puck yelled, pushing against Blaine. His voice was angry, but he barely put any force behind the push, so Blaine nodded at Finn, watching the boy walk away apprehensively, eyes pinned to the pair on the pitch. Puck pushed against Blaine again, slightly harder this time, but Blaine held strong, waiting until Puck's muscles fully relaxed to roll beside Puck. Finn was long gone, but Blaine ran his fingers along the phone in his pocket, just in case. The pair lay side by side on their backs for a good few minutes, the heavy rain ensuring not an inch of skin remained dry.

Puck was so good at comforting, being the strong man, and now that the tables had turned, Blaine had no idea what to do. He'd comforted Kurt before, sure, but this was a completely different ballgame, so they just lay there in silence. Blaine laced his fingers through Puck's, hoping to give him some strength, and waited for Puck to say something.

"I failed." It took a few minutes, but Puck broke the silence, leaving the words hanging heavy in the air. "The resit. I failed." Blaine rolled over, trying as best he could to wrap Puck into a hug. Puck sighed, burying his face in Blaine's hair. Blaine tried to be the pillar of strength Puck needed, anchoring onto his sopping vest and pulling Puck even closer. "I don't want to be my Dad."

"You won't be." Blaine whispered, which was apparently the wrong answer, as Puck was pushing him away with force, rolling aside and climbing to a stand. The downpour became heavier, Blaine sitting up and squinting into the heavy rain as he strained to see Puck, who was tugging at his Mohawk angrily.

"You don't get it. You won't ever get it, because you're talented, and smart, and good at shit. You _know_ you'll get out of this town, because you've got something to give the world." Puck yelled down at Blaine. He scrubbed at his face before continuing. "I'm nothing! I'm a _Lima_. _Loser_. What have I got to give, Blaine? The only thing I'm good at is sex, and what's that good for? Prostitution? I can't even pass a fucking geography test. My Mom, she's never seen me play football or sing, and my Dad…No one gives a shit about me, and why should they? I'm a failure, Blaine!" Puck's voice broke on the final syllable, and he turned away. Blaine climbed to a stand, reaching for his boyfriend. "I'm sorry, I'm…" Puck muttered, folding into Blaine's arms. He tucked his head into Blaine's neck, lashes tickling Blaine as he squeezed his eyes shut and rested his weight upon Blaine's upper body for a moment.

"I care." Blaine finally coughed out, voice heavy with tears. "I care so much, Noh…" He leant back, cupping Puck's face with his hands, and kissed him lightly, gently. "And, you know who's at every football game and glee concert? I am, and I know the second one's not all that impressive since I'm _in _Glee, but you're most definitely who I watch the football for." Blaine smiled, stroking Puck's cheekbones with his thumbs. "You amaze me. You're so special and you can't even see it." Puck reached up, gripping Blaine's forearms tightly, thumbs almost bruising, but Blaine didn't flicker, just lent forward and let Puck rest his forehead on Blaine's. Puck's eyes were squeezed shut, brow knotted. "Let's get you home."

Puck flexed his shoulders, rolling them back and straightening out, loosening his grip on Blaine's arms. Blaine frowned, watching Puck pick himself up and put himself back together, hands still firmly rested on Puck's face as the worry lines smoothed out and the lips released their tension. "Mom's home." It went without saying that Blaine's home was a no-go, his parents were in. "Can we get something to eat? I'm fucking starving."

"Funny that." Blaine smiled lightly, letting his hands fall from Puck's face to his own pockets. His jeans were sodden and damp, heavy from the thick rain that continued to pelt them. He looked at Puck, whose clothes were in a similar state, and smiled once more. "I don't think either of us are in any shape to go to a nice restaurant. Takeout from Breadstix? We can eat in the car…"

"I'd like that." The pair trudged towards Blaine's car in silence, until a heavy, muscled arm came to rest across Blaine's shoulders. Blaine looked up, unsurprised to see Puck staring down at him. The older boy was smiling, and even if it was a little forced, it lifted Blaine slightly. "You know, there is one positive in all of this."

Blaine raised an eyebrow, threading his own arm around Puck's waist and pausing for a moment. "And what would that be, Puck?"

"Since I still want to graduate, I'll be putting the LA plans on hold." Puck stated as they reached the car. They let go of one another, Puck jogging round to the passenger side. He lent on the roof, smiling at Blaine. "Think you can deal with another year of me, Blaine?"

The awful, cruel, heartless nerve at the back of Blaine's brain twitched with delight at the idea of more time with Puck, and he found himself fighting off a smile. "How _will_ I manage?" He replied teasingly, sliding into the car with a little more spring to his step.

* * *

_**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, you all really have warmed the cockles of my heart! I'm afraid I'm off on holiday until Monday now, so no updates til then. Also, it's my birthday next week, so I'm totally going to be blackmailing you guys for birthday reviews. Mmmmkay?**_


	11. Sleeping with Someone Else

**Warning – BIG GAY SEXYTIME. Ye Be Warned. Rated M for a reason.**

**Also, I decided that they're having fun sex, as opposed to deep, intense, look-into-my-eyes-and-feel-our-souls-connect sex. The deep stuff can come later. Yay!**

* * *

"We have to stop meeting like this." Blaine smirked as Puck pushed him into the counter in the home ec room, lips trailing across his jaw.

"Prom in a week." Puck breathed into the crux of Blaine's neck, grinding down headily.

"Not sure I can make it that long." Blaine laughed, pulling Puck away to kiss him one final time, before pulling him away by the Mohawk. "If you want us to stand any chance of making it to glee, we need to leave now."

"Mr Schue can wait…" Puck argued, but let himself be dragged into the corridor regardless.

* * *

In all honesty, Blaine wished he'd listened to Puck; making out in a home ec room was far more worthy of his time than this Glee session.

Brittany's announcement that gel was banned from the prom was surprising, to say the least. Blaine found himself gaping and attempting to protest as Mr Schue tried to continue with the scheduled glee lesson, only giving up when Puck squeezed his elbow, out of sight of the other glee kids.

"I don't get the problem." Puck stated as they walked towards the parking lot at the end of the day. "You've gone without gel in front of me and the lesbians before."

"I know, but we went where nobody knew us, and to a place with a lot less static electricity." It sounded a lot like a whine, Blaine knew, but this was serious, and he didn't know how to make Puck get it. "I can't face up to everyone at McKinley without my gel alone, Puck."

"Then let me come with you." Puck rolled his eyes at the obviousness of the solution, glancing at Blaine quickly. "Look, I know we said we'd keep this secret for a while, but everyone is going to start figuring it out soon enough, we're attached at the hip. I'll come, and I'll snarl at every idiot that comments on your curly head." Blaine came to a stop in the empty corridor, hands on his hips as he stared at the floor, trying to think of a way to make Puck understand. Puck stopped in turn, waiting for Blaine with a frown.

"When I was younger, I came out at a Sadie Hawkins dance with another boy." Blaine started, trying not to let his voice catch at the phrase. "We got the living crap beat out of us. I can't be that out there, can't let you come out there, not at a dance, Puck." Blaine finished, and Puck's face had softened considerably. "I can't go without gel, either. I can't."

"Then let's skip." Puck shrugged, feigning nonchalance as he threw an arm across Blaine's shoulders and played with one of the curls that had fallen out of the gel. "I don't want to go to two senior proms anyway, let's just go next year." Puck stated, squeezing Blaine's shoulder. "We can have an anti-prom."

"Puck, you don't have to…"

"Yes, I do." The tone left no room for argument, and Blaine fell silent, watching Puck with a fond smile. "Berry isn't happy about Finn's campaign with Quinn, Sugar and Becky are angry at not being nominated for Prom Queen. That's three extra guests right there." Puck continued, leading Blaine towards his truck. "I'll tell Berry tomorrow morning, she'll spread the word." He smirked, rolling his eyes as Blaine insisted on opening the driver's side door for him. "Now c'mon, I'm pretty sure we can still catch a film and have you back before 8."

* * *

Rachel went above and beyond what Puck had expected, and within minutes of hearing the words 'anti-prom' she'd booked a hotel room and invited the entire glee club. As expected, the whole idea didn't go down to well with several Glee members (particularly Santana) but less than a week later, they made it to the hotel room, Rachel, Sugar and Becky in tow.

The anti-prom was a dud, though none of them were brave enough to admit it. The presence of the girls meant that Blaine and Puck couldn't do anything couple-y, and all Rachel really wanted to do was try on her Prom dress and mope.

In all, Finn emerging to drag Rachel to the dance was the best thing that could have happened. Blaine had to concede, she looked gorgeous, and their decision to go to Prom was supported wholeheartedly by Sugar, who all but begged Blaine to join them.

"Please, Blaine." Sugar pleaded, eyes wide. "I don't want to have to deal with tweedle-Streisand and tweedle-Frankenstein all the way to McKinley." Blaine stood in the centre of the room for a minute, unsure, before looking at Puck for guidance.

"Go." Puck nodded towards the door, not moving from the bed. "The great thing about McKinley is that everyone is so caught up in their own uninteresting lives that they barely notice when someone else is having a big moment. You will do just fine without the gel, Blaine."

"Okay, okay. If Brittany comes, I'll pretend to be an ice sculpture." Blaine smiled, halfway through being dragged out of the door by Sugar. "Are you coming?"

Puck glanced over at Becky, who was sat in the corner, feigning disinterest. "No, you guys go ahead, I'll stay here." Blaine followed Puck's gaze, nodding understandingly, and followed Sugar out, only just catching the end of Finn and Puck's conversation.

"Come on dude, I need my wing man."

"I'll go next year."

* * *

Pretending to be an ice sculpture didn't work at all.

Brittany had spotted Blaine the second he walked into the hall, and immediately pushed him towards the bathroom.

He was in there for twenty minutes, fiddling with his hair this way and that, but nothing would hide the fuzzy nature of his natural hair besides gel. He sighed, looking up from the sink to the mirror and huffing.

"Courage, Blaine." He said to himself, staring himself down in the mirror. The words didn't have the same effect as they would on someone else, though, and he dragged a shaky hand through his loose hair. His phone buzzed in his pocket and, glad of the distraction, he grabbed it quickly, opening the text immediately.

_Santana said Brittany spotted you. Need some courage? Think how fun it will be when I can get a proper grip in your hair later. P.x_

Blaine smiled fondly at his phone, shoving it in his pocket when a guy he vaguely recognised walked into the bathroom. The guy gave him a strange look, but said nothing about his crazy hair, so Blaine took a deep breath and left the bathroom, walking into a wall of noise.

Sugar was almost immediately at his side, fondling his hair and calling it a halo, and Brittany was throwing insults left, right and centre, but Blaine couldn't hear any of it, far too focussed on what was happening on the dance-floor.

In the centre, right beside where Kurt was dancing with Dave (the pair gaping pretty rudely at Blaine) were Puck and Becky, swaying to a song Blaine didn't recognise. Puck wasn't in a suit, wearing his usual leather jacket and scruffy jeans, with a paper crown balanced on his head. He was laughing at something Blaine couldn't hear, but then he looked up, so slowly, and saw Blaine. His mouth shut, forming a small smile, and he tipped his crown at Blaine, winking once before turning back to Becky.

Blaine smiled to himself, batting Sugar's hand away and touching his own hair for a moment, before Figgins started announcing Prom King and Queen. With the rest of the audience distracted, and Becky heading towards Coach Sylvester, Blaine slid towards Puck, grabbing his coat sleeve and pulling him into the shadows at the back of the auditorium.

"Nice crown." Blaine smiled, nodding at the cardboard balanced on Puck's head.

"Nice hair." Puck countered, reaching forward to tug a strand. "It's curlier than usual."

"I didn't have a chance to style it or blow-dry it, I look like a kitchen scrubber." Blaine ran a hand through his hair nervously, only to have it batted away by Puck. "I'm pretty embarrassed, to be honest."

"Dude, I've spent the last 20 minutes losing to Becky at strip-poker." Puck wrapped a hand in Blaine's hair, giving it an experimental tug and prompting a sharp inhale from Blaine. "Seriously, she had me down to my boxers, and she was still fully dressed." Puck continued, feigning obliviousness as he untangled his hand and let it fall to Blaine's shoulder. "You have _nothing_ to be embarrassed about." Puck smirked, rubbing circles into Blaine's shoulder with his thumb. Blaine could hear Rachel being crowned Prom Queen, but he was barely paying attention.

"So, the crown…"

"Becky wanted to be Prom Queen." Puck shrugged, and Blaine smiled fondly at Puck. "She needed a piece of Prom Booty to go with the crown."

"You make very good arm candy." Blaine conceded, resting his fingers on Puck's forehead as the thumb traced the edge of the crown.

"Holy shit." Puck muttered, and Blaine looked up, jaw dropping as he saw Quinn standing in the middle of the hall. The room had fallen almost silent, no one looking away from her as Santana wrapped an arm around her waist securely.

Puck pulled away slightly to properly clap for Quinn, and as soon as the whole auditorium was thundering with the applause, he turned back to Blaine, offering a hand out. "Can I have this dance?"

Blaine smiled, grabbing the proffered hand and pulling them further into the shadows. "Of course." They swayed in the darkness for a few minutes, before Blaine felt another smile tugging at his cheeks and tightened his grip on Puck's hand enough to catch his attention.

"So." Blaine started, dragging out the syllable until it was hardly even a word anymore. He glanced up at Puck, smirking as he played with the hem of Puck's jacket. "There's no one left in the hotel room." Blaine stated, pulling Puck in a little closer and smiling confidently. "You have the key?"

Puck glanced around the hall, checking that no one was paying attention to them before leaning in to kiss Blaine, slipping the hotel key into his hand. "We don't have to, if you don't want to." Puck offered as he pulled away, watching Blaine carefully.

"Flaking out on me, Puckerman?" Blaine teased, threading their fingers together and pulling Puck towards the exit.

* * *

The pair were silent as they re-entered the hotel room, the door echoing shut behind them. The room was dimly lit, and heavy with tension from what was to come.

Blaine risked a glance at Puck, and found him staring unashamedly, raising an eyebrow as Blaine blinked. The pair were wholly serious for a moment, until Puck's lips began to slowly curl upwards, Blaine's following seconds later. A blink later, Puck was pressed up against Blaine's front, dominating Blaine's mouth and undoing his suit jacket.

Blaine fought to keep up, pushing Puck's leather jacket off his shoulders and tugging at the tight undershirt, whilst walking Puck backwards towards the bed. Both shirts found their way to the floor as the pair settled on the bed, rolling and fighting for dominance without ever really expecting a winner.

They kissed and ground for a few minutes, both relaxing in the familiar territory as hands explored chests and backs. Puck kept tugging on Blaine's hair, wrapping his hand through the thick locks and rubbing, pulling, stroking, tugging, and Blaine kept groaning, hotter than ever, waiting for things to progress. It took all of twenty minutes for Blaine to realise that Puck was waiting for him to make the first move, and he scoffed to himself as he reached for Puck's belt.

"Hang on." Puck muttered, dipping his hand into his pocket and emerging quickly, throwing his loot onto the bed beside them and ridding himself of the belt. He quickly returned to mouthing Blaine's throat, kissing and sucking at the exposed skin as Blaine reached for the discarded products beneath him.

"Durex 'Pleasuremax', and Piña Colada flavoured lube." Blaine chuckled breathlessly as Puck attacked his collarbone with hickey after hickey. "You're so classy."

"I think the word you're looking for is prepared." Puck mumbled into Blaine's chest, flicking Blaine's belt off and dragging his trousers down. "Don't see you whacking out the lube and condoms, Mr Boy Scout."

"Figured you'd have it covered."

"Failure to prepare is preparing to fail, Blaine." Puck tutted, wrestling his own jeans off and taking the underwear with them.

Blaine smiled to himself as Puck crouched over him, naked. It was quite the sight to behold, and Blaine let himself leer for a moment or two. When he dragged his eyes back up to Puck's face, Puck was smirking, brow raised. "Like what you see?"

Blaine just laughed in response, dragging his own boxers down and kicking them off the end of the bed. He was hard, so hard, and if Puck didn't get on with it there would be no sex tonight.

Puck seemed to understand, sliding down Blaine's body and positioning himself between his knees, mouthing at his cock momentarily before focussing lower, sliding one, two, three and eventually even four fingers into Blaine, while Blaine moaned and protested that he was ready.

"If you don't stop complaining, we're going to be here _all. Night._" Puck countered, nipping behind Blaine's knee and curling his fingers upwards, prompting a desperate groan from Blaine.

"Okay… Okay."

It took another few minutes, but Puck finally hummed and withdrew his fingers, smirking up at Blaine and grabbing the condom. "You ready for me to rock your world?" Puck leered, winking exaggeratedly.

"Stop ruining the mood, jerk." Blaine laughed, settling his legs around Puck and smiling. "You gonna go, or what?"

Puck smirked, sliding home almost immediately and watching smugly as Blaine rolled backwards with a keen. Blaine'd die before he'd admit it aloud, but the excessive prep-work meant there was almost no pain, and they immediately set a good rhythm.

Blaine knew that Puck would kill him if he were telepathic, but Blaine couldn't help revel in how different this was from sex with Kurt. The playful nips, the loud laughter, the fast pace were so different from the sessions with Kurt, where sex was always so serious. Blaine was lost in these thoughts until Puck changed the angle slightly and tugged his hair one final time, all semblances of coherence dropping entirely as his eyes rolled back and his orgasm washed over him.

Blaine watched through hooded eyes as Puck's own eyes rolled back, and Puck took a moment before setting about cleaning them up, throwing the condom aside and wiping Blaine down. "I wanna be big spoon." Blaine mumbled as Puck lay down, and Puck acquiesced, letting Blaine curl around his torso before settling deeper into the mattress.

"You good?" Puck muttered, wrapping his hand around Blaine's wrist and burying his face into the pillow. Blaine smiled fondly, placing a kiss on the nape of Puck's neck before burying in himself.

"I'm very, very good." Blaine smiled to himself. "I daresay my world has been thoroughly rocked." He heard Puck give a final laugh, before curling into the mattress and falling into a deep, fulfilling sleep.

* * *

**I've kept things relatively undetailed as I was concerned about keeping this M as opposed to going up to the (nonexistent on ) Explicit rating. If you think I'm still in danger of exceeding the M rating, send me a message. **


	12. Feeling Pride

_**I tried to write this chapter, but ended up writing a dissertation abstract and a Sterek 'one-shot' that is over 15,000 words long instead. I rock at procrastination. I love Plaine, but good god, these boys were hard to write this week.**_

* * *

**_Feeling pride for someone else_**

* * *

Prom night may have been great, but Blaine found that it passed with a tinge of sadness, too. Since the break up with Kurt, he'd forged a new life, and he loved his new, if slightly downsized, group of friends; Santana and Brittany were amazing, Mike was fun and Tina was a little shy, but entertaining. The fact that Mike and Santana were graduating felt awful.

Then, there was Puck. Puck, who should be in the list of graduates, but was going to have to resit senior year. Blaine didn't ever think he'd be okay with the happiness he felt at the notion that Puck would still be at McKinley next year.

And while Blaine was thinking over all this, he knew he should have been paying attention to whatever Coach Sylvester was rambling on about. They'd been watching a video of Vocal Adrenaline, and sure, they looked good, but Blaine didn't really get what the fuss was; their signature move was a slightly complicated forward roll, so what?

Anyway, Santana was beside him, playing on her phone, so if anyone would get in trouble for not paying attention, it would be her. "Do you seriously think we need a guy dressed in drag to win?" Blaine started slightly as Puck spoke from behind him, giving Puck a confused glance before actually focussing on what Coach Sylvester was saying.

"Yes." Coach Sylvester said, drowning out Mr Schue's disapproving _No!_ "It's the only way." Blaine glanced over his shoulder at Puck once, but the boy looked lost in thought, so Blaine turned to the front once more, letting his own thoughts return to menial matters.

* * *

Another location, another daydream. Blaine didn't really know why they even bothered having Glee sessions at this point; all they did was sit around and listen to Coach Sylvester and Mr Schue argue between themselves. Puck wasn't even here this time, so Blaine couldn't even waste time ogling.

"Holy crap." Blaine heard Finn mutter from behind him, and he span to look quizzically at the senior, following his eye line and feeling his own jaw hit the floor.

Puck stood in the doorway, a long floral dress and wig suggesting he was meant to be dressed as a woman, but good god it looked wrong. Blaine looked at his boyfriend, trying to work out what on earth possessed this gender swap, then remembered Puck's question from the day before. _Do you seriously think we need a guy dressed in drag to win?_

"I am strangely turned on right now." Santana quipped, and Blaine gaped at her, eyes searching out anything that wasn't the _vacuum of wrong_ that was Puck. He started laughing in the least visible manner possible as he caught Brittany's eye, and her hands clutched her face, wiping tears from her eyes.

Everyone was laughing, and Blaine felt a little bad, especially as Puck stood at the front, attempting to look defiant and badass. Soon enough, Mr Schue was making him take off the wig and get changed, and Puck shuffled out, leaving Glee to the authoritarian arguments and discussions about little people.

* * *

It wasn't often Blaine felt the need to eat lunch on the deserted football bleachers; the Glee table in the cafeteria rarely got egged nowadays, and there was always a space saved for him. However, Karofsky's return to McKinley a week earlier meant that there was an extra face on the Glee table, and despite having his own new boyfriend, seeing Kurtofsky up close still made his gut turn.

So, instead of taking his usual seat, Blaine grabbed a sandwich and situated himself on the bleachers, looking across the field pensively. It had been almost 24 hours since Puck's little stint as 'Lola', and Blaine felt awful about laughing; Puck had really tried, which was more than anyone else could say, and Blaine hadn't had a chance to apologise.

Halfway through his sandwich, the row shook slightly, and Blaine turned to see Puck sitting down, burger and fries in hand. He nodded to Blaine as he sat, shades perched on the end of his nose. "Not a fan of watching Kurt mack Karofsky?" Blaine shrugged noncommittally, picking at his sandwich. "Don't worry about it, it made my stomach turn too." Puck continued, handing his fries to Blaine as he dug into his burger.

"I should be happy for him." Blaine stated, putting his sandwich aside to eat the proffered fries.

"You should be what you want to be." Puck countered. They sat in silence for a moment, before Puck started talking once more. "Did you know Bieste was being roughed up by Cooter?"

"What?" Blaine's head snapped around, staring at Puck in disbelief. "Is she going to be okay?"

"You know what? I think so." Puck nodded. "I got into another fight with the hockey guys, she broke it up. We had a chat, then a little Taylor Swift sing-along. It was all very heartfelt and shit. She said she'd leave Cooter." Puck shrugged, and Blaine smiled across fondly, bringing a hand up to rest on the back of Puck's neck. "Talked about my Dad, about the Geography test." He stated, lowering his burger and looking out across the pitch. "She said she might be able to get me a resit."

"That's great, Puck." Blaine smiled across, stomach sinking all the while. He was happy for Puck, for this fantastic opportunity, but the flipping between Puck staying and going was making his head hurt. "Sorry about laughing at 'Lola' yesterday."

"Dude, no worries." Puck shrugged, returning to his burger. "You can all say what you like, I know I looked hot." He finished the burger, brushing off his jeans and standing. "Now come on, Santana and Britt have commandeered the choir room for the break, to give you some time away from Kurt and Dave."

They walked to the choir room in near silence, bumping shoulders occasionally and smirking. Blaine's smile widened as he entered the room, Brittany, Artie, Santana, Mike and Tina already there. Santana sat at the piano, more dragging her fingers up and down the keys than actually playing, and Puck immediately joined her, actually carving out a tune as Santana continued to play the occasional note. Mike stood beside the piano, pulling Santana up for a dance as Puck started playing recognisable ditties, the trio smiling.

Blaine made his way across to where everyone else sat; his friends for next year. Artie and Tina were juniors, just like him, and Brittany had already announced she was definitely going to have to resit her senior year; it wasn't like Puck, she couldn't get away with one resit, she'd failed far too many subjects.

"We heard about Puck." Artie stated, looking across at Blaine. "Are you okay? I know you're happy and all, but it must suck, your best friend leaving."

"I'll be fine." Blaine shrugged, looking across at the seniors around the piano. "We all will. It's not going to be too bad, is it?"

"It will be fine." Tina asserted, watching Mike with slightly sad eyes. "We have Skype, and can go visit them all whenever we want, and I am fully intending on writing Mike romantic letters every other day."

"Me too." Artie smiled, waving coyly at Mike. "He's so dreamy." Tina hit him, laughing as Brittany leaned into Blaine.

"I'm going to miss my bi-buddy," She whispered into his ear, squeezing his waist. "but at least I still have my Gay Best Friend?"

"That you do, Britt." Blaine stated, squeezing her waist in return.

* * *

Blaine would never admit to moping in his room, but that was exactly what that evening brought; he'd finally accepted that being happy for his boyfriend yet sad at the prospect of not seeing him every day was an acceptable response to everything that had happened. As such, he was allowed to bask in sadness, at least for a little while. He had a slab of chocolate and an iPod full of depressing tunes, what more could a boy want?

The window slid up, and Blaine was unsurprised to see Puck slipping into his room. "Hey, can we talk?" Puck asked as he dipped in, coming to a stand. Blaine raised an eyebrow; if he wasn't allowed to mope, he figured he should at least make the most of the little time they had left together.

Talking was the last thing Blaine wanted. "We can _talk_ if you really want." Blaine stated, voice dropping to a purr as he approached Puck. "I can think of far better uses for my mouth, though." Blaine dropped to his knees, resting his cheek against Puck's zipper and blowing hotly against Puck's exposed hip.

"_Jesus Blaine_." Puck groaned, canting upwards as Blaine removed his belt and undid his jeans, pulling them down to his knees and groaning as he realised Puck had gone commando.

"Shirt off." Blaine ordered, running his hands along Puck's thighs. Blaine removed his own shirt as Puck struggled with his, cursing and muttering as he ripped it over his head.

It was quick, and messy, and there was almost an incident with teeth, but when Puck fell apart above him, Blaine knew he'd done a good job. His own trousers had been pushed down enough to free his aching cock, and Blaine finished scant seconds after Puck, gasping into Puck's softening dick.

"Come here, let me…" Puck tried to coax Blaine up, muscles loose and pliant in post-orgasmic haze.

"No need." Blaine replied, standing up and tucking himself back into his trousers. Puck groaned wantonly as he realised Blaine had finished whilst sucking him, groping out for Blaine's hands, and instead managing to wrap him in a loose hug. "Let me go clean myself up, okay?" Puck nodded, resting his head against Blaine's shoulder for a moment before leaning back, letting Blaine move away.

Blaine looked at himself in the bathroom mirror for the longest time, cleaning his hands as he stared.

Puck was really going, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

When Blaine returned, he felt a smidge of pride at the fact Puck was still resting against the wall, head back, mouth parted, looking thoroughly taken. Blaine fixed his jeans before wrapping a hand around his wrist, leading him slowly to the bed. The pair lay down, Puck wrapping Blaine in a loose hug as Blaine lay on his back.

"I'm not complaining or anything," Puck started, running his hand through Blaine's hair rhythmically. "but when I said I had something to talk to you about, that wasn't code for wanting sex."

"Oh?" Blaine asked, rolling to face Puck. The pair lay on their sides, Puck's arm under Blaine's neck as his other rested on his hip, whilst Blaine's own hands traced patterns across Puck's torso.

"I've been doing some thinking, about what I want out of life." Puck stated, batting Blaine's hands away in an attempt to concentrate. "Where I want to be, what dreams I want to follow." He continued, eventually grabbing Blaine's wrists and trapping them in one of his hands, earning a sheepish look from Blaine. "Obviously, the end goal is still clean the President's pool or perform on VH1, but I started thinking about how I can get there." Blaine knew it was horrible, but he didn't want to hear what Puck was saying, didn't want to have to hear about his amazing plans for California, but he listened anyway, knowing how important it was to Puck. "Knowing how to fix a Jacuzzi fan is all well and good, but I don't have the business know-how to run a large-scale pool cleaning company, and I've not even played any gigs in Ohio, so getting music slots in Cali would be tough."

"That doesn't mean you should give up, Noah. You can do it all, I know you can." Blaine encouraged, leaning in to place a soft kiss on Puck's lips.

"Let me finish." Puck stated, rolling his eyes fondly. "I talked to Miss Pillsbury." Blaine cocked his head, looking at Puck inquisitively. "Turns out, there's a great community college that offers foundation business degrees right here in Ohio." Blaine felt his heartrate rise, tried to stop the smile from tugging at his lips. "I've found a small apartment, found work at a café nearby to help with the bills, and there's a bar that's said I can do a few sets there." Puck glanced down, then back up, catching Blaine's eyes. "I know I promised you awesome holidays in California, but do you think you could wait a year?"

Puck had barely finished the question before Blaine was on him, straddling his hips and pressing their bare chests together as he kissed the life out of him, fast and frantic. Puck smirked into the kiss, cupping Blaine's head in his hands and letting the younger boy take charge for a change.

Blaine finally tore himself away when a gut-wrenching thought crossed his mind, and he gnawed on his lip as he stared at Puck. "You're not doing this for me, are you?" Blaine blurted out, leaving his hands on Puck's chest. "Because I feel awful if you're putting your California dreams on hold to stay near me, Puck, I couldn't let you do that."

"I'm not going to lie and say I didn't factor you in when I was thinking about all this." Puck replied honestly, flexing his fingers against Blaine's hips. "But Miss Pillsbury really recommended this course, and my Cali dreams will still be there next year." Puck finished, smiling at Blaine. "Think you can deal with another year of me, Anderson?" He repeated his much earlier statement, winking at Blaine.

Blaine didn't say anything, face expressing everything that needed to be said as he dove forward, burying himself in Puck's neck. "Puck, I'd love to have you stay, whether it's as a senior at McKinley again or as a business student. If you change your mind and decide to go to California, we will find a way to make it work." Blaine sat up slightly, looking down at Puck before leaning forward once more, kissing Puck's shoulder. "I'm so proud of you regardless. You try so much, crossdressing, helping Coach Bieste, helping me... I couldn't be prouder of my boyfriend." His words came out slightly muffled, but he knew from the kiss to his forehead that Puck had heard them.

"So, I'm assuming the sneak attack earlier was a '_please don't leave me alone in Ohio' _blowjob." Puck stated, and Blaine smirked into his shoulder. "_Do I get a 'I can't believe you're staying'_ quickie?"

"You're an ass."

"Your ass." Puck smirked in reply, and Blaine smirked back, before diving down for another kiss.


	13. Telling your friends

_**Part 13 - Telling your friends about it**_

The week after Puck's new life plan came into existence was one of the best weeks of Blaine's life. He knew it was mostly hormones, the serotonin from sex keeping him constantly high, but nothing could bring him down, not when there was a stolen kiss waiting behind every corner.

Things only improved when he found himself sat on a log in front of a glistening fire, surrounded by friends and having an all-round good time.

"_You make me, feel like I'm living a, teenage dream,_" Blaine sang, playing a box like a drum as Sam accompanied on guitar.

It was Santana who had suggested a party in the woods to celebrate the birthdays they hadn't had time to acknowledge during exam time; Puck had provided the alcohol, and everyone had to provide the music. The entire Glee club had turned up, Kurt and Karofsky included, and Finn had built a campfire, everyone sitting on logs and benches around it.

There was an unofficial divide in the camp to let the graduates reminisce and the students that would still be there next year bond, so Blaine was bereft of Puck for the evening, but it was actually working out well. Once you got Sam talking, he was actually an okay guy, and they sounded good together. They finished their duet to applause, placing the instruments aside as the other glee members battled to perform next.

Rachel stood, clasping her hands together. "Finn and I have been preparing a song for nationals, you should all –" She started, bouncing on the spot.

"No, no, no. I'm not watching you and Frankenstein make eyes at each other, not tonight." Santana overruled, standing up and sashaying across the circle. Santana slid onto the log aside Puck, grabbing his guitar by the neck and thrusting it towards him. "Duet time, sugar lips."

"What were you thinking?" Puck smirked, grinning fully as Santana whispered a song into his ear. "Sticking with the crooners, huh?"

"You bet your ass I am." Santana smirked. "Play it, Mohawk."

"_I know I stand in line until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me_…" The pair started, Puck improvising on the guitar. The duo smiled at one another, before Puck flicked his gaze down to the guitar for a few chords, finally dragging his eyes up to catch Blaine's eye.

And suddenly Brittany had dragged Mike up for a dance, and Tina was pressed into Blaine's side, laughing, and he had things to look at that weren't Puck's eyes. Tina had him dancing within seconds, spinning them round beside the fire until somehow he was dancing with Brittany and Mike with Tina. Other couples quickly joined the foursome, until only Santana and Puck remained on the logs.

Blaine smiled and danced, spinning between partners to the music, until he found himself partner-less, waiting for another pair to spin out and separate. He glanced over at the performers, finding Puck watching him, smiling slightly. "_And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you_." The pair sang, Puck's lips lifting at the corners at the end of the line. Blaine smiled back, laughing when Santana dug her elbow into Puck's ribs and started making faces. Blaine's gaze was finally dragged away when he heard a cough behind him, turning to find Finn standing there, an indiscernible look upon his face.

"Hey Blaine." Finn stated, all false happiness and terse eyes. "Can I have a word?"

Blaine froze for a moment, glancing around, before nodding. "Sure."

Finn led him away from the group slightly, stopping a few metres away from the edge of their makeshift camping circle. Blaine waited, brows raised, as Finn paced slightly. The jock kept glancing between Blaine and the group behind, dragging his hand over his face nervously before he finally stopped and addressed Blaine. "I mainly just wanted to thank you for helping out with Puck on the football field, you were a Godsend." Blaine nodded, smiling, as Finn scruffed the back of his hair. "Look Dude, I see how you look at him. Puck."

Blaine tensed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and glancing over at the rest of the glee club. "Oh yeah?"

"I get it, man. He's Puck, people find him attractive." Finn started, resting a heavy hand on Blaine's shoulder and drawing Blaine's gaze back to him. "But, man, Puck's not like you or Kurt or Dave, and I don't want to see you get hurt." Blaine risked another glance at the group, and saw Puck staring at the two of them, head cocked like a curious puppy.

"Finn…"

"No, please listen to me. You're his bro now, and that's great, but you need to know that he can't give you anything more than that." Finn stated, giving Blaine's shoulder a firm shake. "I know Kurt put you through the mill, I just don't want you to get hurt aga-"

Blaine never got to hear the end of Finn's speech, gasping as he was quite literally swept off his feet into a blistering kiss. He was nearly blind in the darkness, but he could feel that it was Puck, the heady mix of whiskey and ash doing nothing to change the way his kiss felt. Blaine clung to Puck's shoulders as Puck's hands clung to his thighs, holding him just off the ground.

Puck pulled away, and Blaine had a quick sweep around. Mike appeared to be counting money for Tina, Kurt looked shocked and a little angry, and the rest of the group were exhibiting such a wide range of emotions that Blaine didn't know what to think. He felt Puck threading fingers through his hand, and let the mohawked teen pull him towards the truck.

"Wanky!" Blaine heard Santana yell, moments before his car door slammed shut and Puck hit the gas.

"Well, that's telling the Glee club about us out of the way." Blaine smiled, grin widening when Puck reached over to take his hand once more.

"Sorry if you wanted some proper reveal with heartfelt talking and shit." Puck shrugged, looking unapologetic. He smirked, squeezing Blaine's fingers lightly. "Let's face it, though, it was totally worth it for the look on Finn's face."

"I'm pretty sure Mike and Tina had a bet on us." Blaine replied, smiling across at Puck. "Where are we going?"

"Back to mine?" Puck suggested, glancing across briefly. "The house is empty, Sarah and Mom have gone away for the weekend…"

"Well then, Puckerman," Blaine started, undoing his bowtie and leaving it to rest across his neck. "Lead the way."

* * *

**IMPORTANT NOTE - Although I will be finishing this story here, I have now got an AO3 account, and intend to post most stories over there now. If you've enjoyed my writing, I'll be publishing Sterek and Plaine fics under the name CurlyMcJimbo **


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